Order of Malta

The 2018 pilgrimage of the Order to Lourdes took place on May 4-8. The Hungarian Association took part with a group of 62, of whom 19 members of the Order, 3 candidates, 17 malades and 3 pilgrims. This year the sanctuary was celebrating its 160th anniversary, while the Order, led by the newly-elected Grand Master, was on its 60th pilgrimage.

This year was marked by a number of events that could be construed as miracles.

- It was a miracle that we were able to get to Lourdes at all. We were alerted on Wednesday morning that due to the Air France strike, the trip, planned for Friday afternoon, had to be brought forward to Thursday, with the group divided among three different flights.  Seats were found, flights, transfer arrangements and hotels re-booked, all participants alerted, and with the exception of one malade whose physician barred him from travelling, all 62 made it!

- It was a miracle that, contrary to all forecasts, the weather was fine nearly all the time.

Contrary to previous years, the programme began with the candlelit procession on Friday. On Saturday we enjoyed spledid weather during the Eucharistic procession, at which our consoeur Katalin Kraetschmer held one of the banners. We were particularly happy that during Sunday Mass, our confrere Lajos Okolicsányi read, in Hungarian, the invocation for families during the Prayer of the Faithful. That afternoon we prayed the Stations of the Cross. Those of us who took on the mountainside Stations, led by Fr. Pásztor, prayed the Way of the Cross of Father Placid. The rest of the group, led by Ágoston Czigler, followed the Faykod Stations by the river.

At the Hungarian Mass at the Grotto on Monday morning, we prayed for those who could not be present, especially for Sr. Margit Zeleny, who had been a pillar of our pilgrimages for 17 years and had taught us by her example how to minister to both body and soul. At that moment Sr. Margit was almost on her way to the Father's House, but - as we realised later - she had waited for the Hungarian Mass! This year too, as always, we woke our malades every morning with the Lourdes hymn, according to the custom that she had introduced years ago.

- Tuesday was miraculous too: in spite of the strike and cancelled flights, everyone made it safely home by 11 p.m.

It brought us special joy to welcome 12 first-time helpers. The number of young helpers is growing too: this year there were 11. We earnestly hope that they, too, will be touched by the beauty of this wonderful pilgrimage and will come again often in future!