We returned for the second time this year in July. We were about a thousand miles to the northern tip of France,
but we wanted to include it, forcing the march between our stages. Why? In
groped to answer the difficult beginning of these short notes. In fact I will not repeat things said and repeated, even less for those who do not need to reach Lourdes
I do to find God, convinced that a visit to Lourdes is not only a moment of religious believers, but also considerable human experience for all, shoulder to shoulder with humanity suffering. As in the night, when thousands of torches moving as if they were square in a language of incandescent lava and humanity, made smooth by a mysterious common denominator, he finds himself approached, stripped of conceit and felt a sense of anything that we .
And one of the miracles of Lourdes, which is renewed every day from May to October.
Arriving in the town, the topography which easily takes hold there, the first thing you notice are the many streets lined with countless shops, in a succession obsessive: sale of saints, Madonnas, containers to collect water in the Basilica, crucifixes, candles and so on: a bad impact, let us say frankly and the feeling of a big business, even if all rigorously fenced off by the immense open space of the Basilica.
Only after being inside the fence "sacred", having found a haven of peace and quiet, back in the middle of the buzz of people swarming among the shops and countless bars and small restaurants, they begins to make a clear distinction of a tourist dominated by the laws of the market that no one can overthrow (and then why?) and the religious and human consequences. All those shops and bars lit up late at night contribute to a sense of animation on importance of which I will discuss below.
In the afternoon, winds around the large square in the procession in the wake of a priest with the monstrance under a canopy of gold-colored sun. It follows behind the people of different races, languages, age and class. And they said, the crippled, the immobilized in bed for years. They freed from anxiety, accepted, no longer marginalized, part of the people in procession, with serene faces, sometimes even smiling. They left without their homes or from hospitals in their heads has become the idea that the legs have started to hold or eyes to see the light. Because the point è questo: nessuno si attende il miracolo, ma conta di abbeverarsi di forza morale, per una maggiore capacità di sopportazione.
Vicino agli infermi, a sorreggerli, a trainare le carrozzelle col tettino blu, ci sono i barellieri con le bretelle di cuoio, uomini di mezza età e giovanissimi: gente delle fabbriche, degli uffici, delle scuole, che non percepisce nessuna ricompensa ed ha rinunciato alle ferie.
Vi è anche un'altra presenza che colpisce per la compostezza, la professionalità e l'impegno: l'esercito bianco. Medici ed infermiere.
Per consentire ad una vecchia donna distesa in una barella di partecipare, abbiamo visto bianche infermiere seguire la processione al fianco dell'inferma, tenendo levata in alto la flebo: dopo la processione le carrozzine con i malati meno gravi (gli altri vengono subito ricoverati) si riversano nelle stradine, trainati dai loro pazienti e resistenti barellieri: gli infermi cicalecciano, scherzano fra loro e con gli assistenti. Sembrano aver dimenticato la miseria del corpo mentre sostano nei negozi e nei bar con i "sani" in una straordinaria normalità.
Ad ora tarda, in alcuni locali, si levano allegri canti di ragazzi e ragazze: accompagnano coetanei ammalati nella straordinaria animazione di una notte. In un mondo imbarbarito, accecato d'odio, sempre in bilico fra pace e guerra, ci si rasserena a vedere certe cose; per esempio una ragazza bianca che accompagna abbracciata una ragazza nera, per aiutarla a camminare. La parola "apartheid" non viene neppure in mente, rappresentando una realtà ancor più lontana ed assurda.
Ma a Lourdes ci vanno anche coloro che, a vederli da fuori, sembrano non aver nulla, i cosiddetti sani che in qualche occasione si tradiscono con una overbearing and furtive tear. How many are there, shoulder to shoulder like that?
Maybe one day, one day at least, one can understand the meaning of a word misused: brotherhood. Maybe I'm pessimistic. Maybe something goes after: believers and - at this point I can reaffirm the conviction - the non-believers.
John Noera
image cc by Michael Beat
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