*The Blessed Sacrament Procession: Ritual, Power, Leadership, and Bodies*

My involvement with Lourdes began when I joined the Oxford Chaplaincy pilgrimage group in 1969. We stayed for a week as volunteer helpers under the command of the lay confraternity, the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes, which coordinated work at the shrine, the station and airport, such as helping people in and out of trains and planes, helping with crowd control at the grotto, outside the baths and during the main events, and assisting inside the baths and hospitals. I continued to go on pilgrimage with the group until 1992 and returned again for six years in 2013. This lengthy acquaintance with Lourdes enabled me to observe the relationship between ritual, power, leadership, and ritual changes.

To many visitors, including those who popped in for the day and those who only went on pilgrimage a few times, these rituals could appear to be long-lasting and unchanging. However, they have changed significantly to reflect wider religious and social transformations. The afternoon Blessed Sacrament ceremony provides a clear illustration of both ritual stasis and change. During the 1970s, when I first started to visit Lourdes on pilgrimage, the ceremony followed a regular routine. It began at 4:30 p.m. and involved the Host being taken in a monstrance by a senior cleric (often a bishop or cardinal) followed by a long line of priests, doctors, members of the Hospitality, pilgrimage groups, and Catholic organisations. It began near the grotto and snaked up to one of the main gates to the sanctuary and then down to the main square where the *malades* were assembled in rows. Shepherded by senior members of the Hospitality, the priest walked in front of the lines of *malades* and the crowds behind them, blessing them with the Host. When this was completed, he stood at the foot of the steps in front of the three basilicas while the assembled throng sang the Latin hymn to Our Lady (St. Mary, mother of Jesus)—*Salve Regina* (Hail, Holy Queen). At the end of the ceremony the Host was taken inside one of the basilicas and placed inside a tabernacle while the participants dispersed.

This particular format was developed by Fr. Picard in 1888 to make use of the new esplanade. He had observed the procession that another priest had initiated for his pilgrimage group where he

processed with the Host from the basilica to the grotto for evening benediction (Harris 1999, p. 279). The Eucharistic or Blessed Sacrament procession was popularly known as the Blessing of the Sick ceremony because the climax of the ritual for many people was the parading of the Host around the serried ranks of *malade* and the repeated invocation for healing by the master of ceremonies. During the late nineteenth century, the procession became intimately associated with claims of miraculous healing. As Suzanne Kaufman notes, "whereas only six of forty-two verified cures in 1888 took place during the first Procession of Blessed Sacrament, more than half of the verified cures happened there by 1894, a margin that continued for the rest of the decade" (Kaufman 2005, p. 107).

Ruth Harris (1999) provides a description by a French woman of her cure in 1890. Mlle Benogni felt "unable to ask for a cure until she saw the procession again two days" after she had bathed in the *piscines*:

[T]he procession was advancing slowly, coming from the grotto, where several invalids had risen on Christ's passage [referring here to the Host as Jesus's body, J.E.]. Two stretcher-bearers helped me to get out of the little carriage. Jesus was coming forward, blessing and curing the souls and the bodies. A supernatural force made me walk, part the crowd and place myself behind the platform! ... Then, upright and steady ... I followed the procession, imbued with love and gratitude, for Him whose single glance had restored me to life! (quoted in Harris 1999, p. 316)

By the 1970s, the association between the procession and miraculous healing had become faint. The ritual appeared to emphasise more the sacramental character of the Host rather than the ceremony's wonder-working energy (see Dahlberg 1991). The ceremony was moving, especially when the *malades* were blessed, but it lacked the drama of miraculous healing recorded during the late 19th century. This change reflected the role played by the religious leadership at the shrine and their hierarchical authority as representatives of the Catholic Church.

The continuously changing character of the ritual reflected the reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). A key change involved the language of the Mass. Latin had been used for centuries in this prime liturgical celebration and because many worshippers could not understand this ancient language two modes of devotion had emerged—the priest conducting the Mass with his back to the congregation and many within the congregation pursuing their own devotions, such as reciting the rosary. To close this ritual gap between the clerical leadership and lay worshippers, more and more elements of the Mass were communicated through national languages. At Lourdes, this led to the increasing use of vernacular languages for the prayers, invocations, and hymns performed during the Blessed Sacrament ceremony with Latin only being used in the *Salve Regina* hymn at the end of the ceremony. Yet, the ritual still seemed to emphasise the Church's authority over the passive, disciplined body; the active agents were the officials—priests, members of the Hospitality, and those in the procession looking on, especially the doctors—led by the cardinal or bishop wielding the Host in its glittering, golden monstrance.

When I returned in 2013 after a twenty-one-year break, the ceremony had been radically changed. It began opposite the grotto around a large altar and a long procession wound its way across the river, up to one of the main gates, and down to the massive underground basilica, leaving the esplanade empty. *Malades* formed an integral part of the procession and their helpers stayed with them throughout the journey. The *malades* were far less passive objects of an official gaze and their agency was vividly expressed through their use of cameras, mobile phones, and iPads to record the Blessing of the Sick. Yet, despite the greater mobility and increased agency of the lay participants, the fundamental character of the ceremony remained—the climax of the ceremony was still the arrival of the clergy with the senior celebrant blessing the congregation with the Host in its golden monstrance.
