LOURDES COMING TO THE DIOCESE

Virtual experience has stops in St. Mary’s in Amsterdam and Our Lady of Martyrs Shrine

People pray in front of the grotto of the apparitions, at the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in southern France. Even though a pilgrimage peak was some months away, the shrine celebrated its wintery feast day in 2025 with a number of pilgrims who flocked to the mountain-based French holy site on the Feb. 11 anniversary of the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin to St. Bernadette Soubirous in 1858. (OSV News photo/courtesy Lourdes Sanctuary) (Courtesy photo of None)

If you have ever wanted to go to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France, you are in luck. 

The Lourdes Virtual Pilgrimage Experience is coming to ­Historic St. Mary’s Church in Amsterdam on Saturday, May 30, starting at 1:30 p.m., and the National Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville will host a Spanish-language virtual experience on May 31, also starting at 1:30 p.m. (The English-language virtual experience will also make a stop at Sacred Heart Church in Palenville on May 31 starting at 1 p.m.).

The virtual experience is run by the North American Lourdes Volunteers, a group that is based in Syracuse, and states on their website (lourdesvolunteers.org) that the experience “re-creates a pilgrimage to Lourdes without ever leaving home. This prayerful experience draws pilgrims nearer to God in the company of Our Lady as they are guided through a prayerful visit to the Grotto, the experience of the water, prayer in a Rosary procession and a Eucharistic blessing.”

The interactive spiritual journey will include rocks from the Grotto of Massabielle, water from the Lourdes spring, images of the sanctuary, music, as well as Adoration and Benediction and a Holy Rosary procession. Participants will also get to write down prayer intentions which the volunteers will take to Lourdes for the pilgrimage in June and everyone attending — in the state of grace — will receive a plenary indulgence.

“There are a lot of people who would want to go to the world-renowned Healing Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes but they can’t make it there for whatever reason; it is a long distance, it’s expensive,” said Father Nathaniel Resila, parish administrator of St. Mary’s. “Having this opportunity to bring Lourdes here to the people of Amsterdam, Montgomery County and the people of the Diocese of Albany is a beautiful opportunity. 

“We all are sick and suffering in some way, I think, but some certainly more than others. I think people — whatever their cross is, whatever they are bearing — will experience peace and healing. I do believe many miracles will take place.”

The feast of Our Lady of Lourdes takes place on Feb. 11 and marks the anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes to St. Bernadette Soubirous in 1858 in Lourdes, France. The 14-year-old girl saw the Blessed Virgin Mary standing in a small grotto. During a total of 18 apparitions over the course of six months, thousands of people gathered around Bernadette to witness these events. A new spring surged where Bernadette had been instructed to drink, and many miraculous healings occurred. Today, Lourdes is a Marian shrine visited by millions.

Father Resila, whose grandmother immigrated from France, found out about the virtual experience through Michele Geissler, special events coordinator at St. Mary’s. Geissler first came in contact with the North American Lourdes Volunteers in 2022 when she was a parishioner at Holy Family in Little Falls. The next year, the virtual experience came to Holy Family and Geissler, who has had a kidney transplant, actually went to Lourdes in October 2023.

“If you attend the virtual pilgrimage or go to Lourdes, you leave with something, be it a spiritual healing, a physical healing or a mental healing,” Geissler said. “What they do is they bring Lourdes to us.”

This experience is also personal for Father Resila, who has a great devotion to Our Blessed Mother, and whose father Jim has been battling necrotizing pancreatitis since November 2024. The affliction is a severe, life-threatening complication of acute pancreatitis where parts of the pancreas and surrounding tissue die due to severe inflammation. Father Resila said his dad’s illness “turned his world and our world upside down,” as he went from a healthy 62-year-old to being in a coma for over a week and all his organs nearly shut down. He has been hospitalized at Ellis, sought treatment in Newark, N.J., and is currently at Albany Medical Center in acute rehabilitation. 

“With all of this in the background, this is personal and meaningful for me,” Father Resila said. “My dad would not be with us without miracles, without the prayers and without the love of the people; to give other people opportunities to be healed and restored to life is a beautiful thing.”

While Father Resila is unsure if his dad will be able to attend the virtual pilgrimage, he and his family are planning on going to Lourdes on pilgrimage in October. Father Resila will be joining the North American Lourdes Volunteers as a member of the Chaplain Team administering sacraments to the sick and concelebrating Mass in the Grotto and Sanctuary in Lourdes. 

“The last day of the pilgrimage is Oct. 17 and that is my dad’s birthday,” he said. “It would be perfect if he would be able to make it there.”

Note: The Spanish-language version of the virtual pilgrimage in Auriesville will be led by Lourdes Virtual Pilgrimage Experience guides Edwin and Charo Rojas of the Archdiocese of Miami.