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Pilgrimages of Europe : Vol.
II : Lourdes, France & Les Saintes Marie de la Mer, France. |
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This DVD features two half-hour documentaries and ten previews.
Pilgrimages are as old as mankind. The mystical and spiritual nature of a
pilgrimage holds an eternal, mythic appeal to the imagination of many
people. Every year millions of pilgrims of all nationalities, young and old,
set out on these voyages of the soul. The twelve documentaries in the
Pilgrimages of Europe collection are experiential journeys to some of the
most sacred routes and holy places throughout Christian Europe.
Each half-hour documentary, richly filmed, looks at the spiritual, cultural
and historical background of an important pilgrimage sites throughout
Europe. However, the people, the pilgrims themselves, are at the heart of
these stories – their purposes and desires, their motivations, and the great
sense of the holy and the sacred which they find on their journeys of faith.
LOURDES, France
The story of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Lourdes has been recorded
in detail in handwritten documents. In the middle of the 1800s Lourdes was
an obscure village in the south of France at the foot of the Pyrenees. The
Soubirous family was reduced to poverty, when Monsieur Soubirous lost his
job due to an accident at the water mill in which he lost an eye. The eldest
child, Bernadette, was often sent to collect wood. On an icy day in February
1858, she saw a vision of a white lady in a grotto by the river. During the
last of 18 apparitions, the lady revealed her identity, calling herself the
Immaculate Conception. Each year, especially during the summer, special
trains leave various European countries bound for Lourdes. Pilgrimage
committees on a non-profit basis organize the trips. Lourdes has become the
major pilgrimage center for the sick and infirm. Pilgrims make the journey
with large groups of bedridden patients and the disabled. Helpers accompany
them, including doctors and nurses, all volunteers. All day long a steady
stream of tourists visit the site in the grotto where Mary appeared. Many
people feel that drinking the water or bathing in it does them good. Many
have been cured.
LES SAINTES MARIES DE LA MER, France
This is the story of the two Marys, the mothers of the disciples John and
Jacob, whose boat was shipwrecked off the coast of southern France. They had
fled by sea after being banished from Palestine. Their boat began to sink
near Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, a small town in the Camargue, where the
river Rhone flows into the Mediterranean. According to the legend, Sara, a
gypsy, watched from the beach as the boat foundered. She spread her cloak
and both Marys safely reached shore. They told Sara of Christ’s
resurrection, and Sara asked the women to baptize her. Every year tens of
thousands of gypsies from all over the world come to Les Saintes Maries.
They come to worship their patron saint, the woman they call Saint Sara. In
the morning they visit the crypt where the statue of Sara is displayed.
Later in the day the statue is taken from the crypt and carried out to sea
accompanied by a grand procession of gypsies. Although Sara has not been
formally recognized by the church, it has made a gesture, declaring May 24th
as Sara’s official saint’s day.
Including previews of the following ten pilgrimages, available on the other
five DVDs in the collection:
Volume I: CROAGH PATRICK, Ireland & IONA, Scotland
Volume III: AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands & FATIMA, Portugal
Volume IV: EL ROCIO, Spain & SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain
Volume V: KALWARIA ZEBRZYDOWSKA, Poland & SCHERPENHEUVEL, Belgium
Volume VI: MEDJUGORJE, Bosnia & KEVELAER, Germany
LENGTH: 90 minutes of content
ORDER CODE:JM20243DVD
DVD
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