Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - From 8 December 2007 to 8 December 2008 Lourdes will celebrate a Jubilee Year for the 150th anniversary of the apparitions at the grotto of Massabielle. The intense calendar of 12 months, during which some 8 million pilgrims are expected, will develop 12 "missions" proper to Lourdes including: the sick, the excluded, conversion, peace, young people, volunteers. A statement issued today by the Holy See Press Office said that in opening celebrations Lourdes volunteers will play a leading role: 3.500 people will take part in an international meeting: "L’Eglise en mission avec les bénévoles". Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, celebrate a Mass for them on 7 December in the St Pius X underground basilica. The following day 8 December he will speak at the plenary session of an international meeting on "Deus Caritas est and volunteer work".
A few days since the conclusion in the Vatican of the First Forum for NGOs of Catholic-inspiration whose participants Pope Benedict XVI encouraged to find concrete ways of living "the great creativity of truth with regard to the innate dignity of the human person and the ensuing human rights", Cardinal Cordes will re-launch the message to the world of volunteer work which for a century and a half has accompanied and shared the life of sick pilgrims in Lourdes. The Pontifical Council Cor Unum was created in 1972 by Pope Paul VI to encourage and diffuse the dimension of love and to co-ordinate and assist the Church's charitable organisations.
In response to requests by numerous bishops and faithful the Supreme Pontiff Pope Benedict XVI will grant a special plenary indulgence on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Grotto in Massabielle, near Lourdes, to Saint Bernardette Soubirous. In view of the Holy Father's decision th Apostolic Penitentiary issued a decree which establishes “the daily concession of the plenary indulgence to the faithful on the condition that between February 2, 2008 and February 11, 2008, Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lourdes and 150th anniversary of the apparition, they visit, in any church, grotto or decorous place, the blessed image of that same Virgin of Lourdes, solemnly exposed for public veneration, and before the image participate in a pious exercise of Marian devotion, or at least pause for an appropriate space of time in prayer and with pious meditations, concluding with the recital of the Our Father, the Profession of Faith, ...and the invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 5/12/2007; righe 28, parole 384)
