Closed since 2020, the swimming pools of the Lourdes sanctuary should once again welcome pilgrims by the end of the year. But the precise timetable and reception arrangements after reopening are still under study.
The pilgrims have been impatiently awaiting this news for four years. Closed in 2020 during the health crisis, the Lourdes swimming pools will finally reopen their doors by the end of 2024, the sanctuary announced. For four years, the ritual of immersion had been replaced by the “water gesture”, during which the pilgrim washes his face and hands and can drink water from the spring. But by the end of the year, it will be possible to swim in swimming pools again. “The reopening will take place this year, but we cannot say when,” said the sanctuary of Lourdes in Aleteia. “It will depend on the work, which has not yet started. » The water treatment system should therefore be replaced, to ensure better hygiene.
The precise schedule not yet revealed
If pilgrims will be able to bathe in the water of the spring again, access to the swimming pools will be very different from what it was before 2020. The sanctuary has announced that the number of pilgrims welcomed should be reduced, without giving more details regarding the future organization. “All this is still under study, we will of course take into account the request of pilgrims,” it was clarified. Before the pandemic, several hundred thousand pilgrims from all over the world bathed in the pools each year. There are 420,000 in 2023 who will have performed the “water gesture”, which should continue to be offered to pilgrims after the reopening of the baths. Less popular with pilgrims than immersion, this ritual is nevertheless similar to the original approach of Saint Bernadette , to whom the Lady said: “Come and drink from the fountain and wash yourself there”.
The swimming pools are an integral part of the pilgrimage to Lourdes, but they are not the purpose. Last year, 3 million pilgrims came to the sanctuary, in front of the grotto, to seek above all this powerful heart to heart with Mary who comforts and heals.
