No moneyto get to the hotel...
Jean Rodhain had the deep intuition thata place in the heart of the Marian city was necessary to welcome poor families, as can be read in this account he gave in 1955:
” On the platform of the Lourdes station, the last evening train leaves for Paris. A family, father, mother and five children, boarded at the last minute. All seven managed to squeeze into the only four empty seats. In the compartment, there’s a disapproving welcome for such uncoordinated people.
We talk…
I ask the children: Pic du Ger? Don’t you know Gavarnie? Never heard of it.
These people only know the Grotto and the Basilica. Absolutely nothing else.
I’m astonished: But how long have you been in Lourdes? Since this morning.
The whole compartment gasps.
Father explains: “Yes, it’s true, we left Paris last night. We only stayed in Lourdes for the day. We’d never seen Lourdes, and we had a great grace to ask of the Virgin. So we waited until we had enough money for the trip. As soon as we did, we left. We could have paid for the hotel for two nights, if we’d only come in threes, but we didn’t want to leave each other. So here we are, all seven of us, sleeping two nights on the train, and spending the whole day at the Grotto. We saw everything we needed to see.”
