What Are the Major Events in Lourdes?

Lent prepares for the great feast of Easter. In Lourdes, this more inward-looking season is lived in the recovered silence of the grotto. The daily celebrations take on a penitential tone, echoing the Virgin's words to Bernadette on 24 February 1858: “Penance! Penance! Penance! Pray to God for the conversion of sinners.”

The monumental Way of the Cross on the hill behind the basilicas takes on its full power during this season. Its fifteen life-size bronze stations, climbed in the cool of spring, form one of the most beautiful meditations on the Passion in France.

Holy Week gathers the faithful around the great traditional liturgies: the Chrism Mass, the Mass in memory of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday, the celebration of the Passion on Good Friday, the Easter Vigil in the night from Saturday to Sunday, and the solemn Mass of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Easter Monday traditionally marks the return of the great evening processions. The torchlight procession sets out once again every evening at 21:00, until the end of October.

Forty days after Easter, the Ascension celebrates the risen Christ's return to the Father. Always falling on a Thursday, it opens a long public-holiday weekend in France that becomes one of the great moments of the year in Lourdes. Depending on the calendar, the feast falls in May or at the very beginning of June, sometimes still within the month of Mary.

The Ascension weekend marks the first surge in intensity before the summer. Diocesan pilgrimages follow one another, accommodation fills up, and the evening torchlight procession returns to its full scale. Tens of thousands of pilgrims converge on Lourdes during these four days, drawn by the liturgical feast but also by the convenience of the long weekend.

At the Paternal Home, this is one of the first highlights of the season. Our family welcomes a continuous flow of visitors, often coming in diocesan groups or as families. If you plan to come at this time, book your accommodation several months in advance and reserve your visiting slot at the Moulin Lacadé ahead of time to avoid waiting.

If, on the other hand, you are looking for a quieter moment, choose the weeks immediately before or after the long weekend. Attendance drops off noticeably then.

Around 24 June, the feast of Saint John, Lourdes lives one of its great summer weekends. This is something we, the Soubirous family, have observed for a long time: the town rises in intensity then, in the wake of the Ascension and Pentecost, which have already opened the high season. The Sanctuary, the streets and the accommodation are all full. The Paternal Home, in particular, welcomes a continuous flow of pilgrims from all over the world.

If you are planning a visit at this time, book everything well in advance: hotel, restaurants, and your visiting slot at the Paternal Home. And plan your journeys carefully: traffic and parking are under strain.

If, on the other hand, you are looking for a quieter moment to experience Lourdes, this is not the weekend for it. Choose the weeks immediately afterwards, or the months of September and November.

The first weekend of October is devoted to the Rosary Pilgrimage, organised every year by the Dominicans since 1908. It is one of the largest pilgrimages of the year. It gathers tens of thousands of the faithful around the prayer of the rosary, which has been a distinctive sign of Lourdes ever since the Virgin showed hers to Bernadette at the very first apparition.

October offers a special atmosphere. Temperatures grow cooler, autumn colours settle over the Pyrenees, and the fervour of the pilgrims takes on a more contemplative tone than at the height of summer. For many, it is one of the most beautiful times to experience Lourdes.

Other major pilgrimages follow one another in September and October: the pilgrimage of the fraternities, diocesan pilgrimages. The end of the tourist season gives way to a more sober, more deeply rooted devotion.

8 December celebrates the Immaculate Conception, the patronal feast of Lourdes. This solemnity commemorates the belief that the Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin.

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception was proclaimed by Pope Pius IX on 8 December 1854, four years before Bernadette's apparitions. Yet at the sixteenth apparition, on 25 March 1858, when Bernadette asked for the fourth time to know the Lady's name, she replied in the Bigourdan dialect: “Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou” (“I am the Immaculate Conception”).

Bernadette, who could not read or write, does not understand the meaning of this learned theological expression. She runs to Father Peyramale's house, repeating the words in her head so as not to forget them. The parish priest turns pale. How could this child know a dogma proclaimed four years earlier in Rome, in a language she does not understand? This coincidence is one of the theological foundations on which the Church recognised the authenticity of the apparitions.

8 December in Lourdes is therefore a major feast. A torchlight procession is held despite the cold. The celebrations gather the faithful pilgrims in an atmosphere more intimate than that of summer.

Whenever you come to Lourdes, you will find something there. A feast, a silence, a procession, an encounter. The town reveals itself differently depending on the month, the hour, the light of the day.

When you come to visit the Paternal Home, tell us which date you have chosen. We will be able to tell you what awaits you, what to plan for, and how to make the most of your visit.

Maison Paternelle de Sainte Bernadette · 2 rue Bernadette Soubirous, 65100 Lourdes · Opening hours: 9:30-12:15 / 14:15-18:30 · Upkeep contribution: €2.50

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