Two Months After Floods Thousands Flock to Lourdes for Assumption

by Rukmani Krishna on  August 17, 2013 at 11:34 PM Lifestyle News Two months after the church in southwestern France was damaged by floodwaters, six thousand Catholic faithful attended an Assumption mass in the Basilica of Saint Pius X in Lourdes.  Two Months After Floods Thousands Flock to Lourdes for Assumption
The crowds were only slightly smaller than last year and a spokesman for the town's religious sites said the recovery had been faster than expected thanks to successful fund-raising campaign.

The attendees were just some of the 25,000 people who made the journey from across Europe to celebrate the Virgin Mary's ascension into heaven, in the French town known for its apparitions of the Virgin to a poor 14-year-old girl.

Scars from the flooding are still visible in closed roads, shuttered buildings and closed hotels, although these traces are only a distant evocation of the devastation of two months ago.

Pilgrims prayed at the grotto where, according to Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.

In a meadow where another mass was held, about 7,000 people, many of them in poor health, participated in the celebration of the Eucharist.

Three people were killed in the June flooding and thousands were evacuated from hotels flooded with water overflowing from the Gave de Pau river.

Six million people visit Lourdes every year, with the numbers in July and August peaking at up to 40,000 a day.

Source-AFP

var xmlHttpvar imgpath,imagefunction RefreshImage(ImageId){image=document.getElementById(ImageId);//alert(ImageId);xmlHttp=GetXmlHttpObject();if (xmlHttp==null) { alert ("Your browser does not support AJAX!"); return; } var url="http://www.medindia.net/captcha/captcha.asp";url=url+"?x="+Math.random();imgpath=url;xmlHttp.onreadystatechange=stateChangedReg;xmlHttp.open("GET",url,true);xmlHttp.send(null);} function stateChangedReg(){if (xmlHttp.readyState==4){image.src = imgpath;}}function RequestCode(){xmlHttp=GetXmlHttpObject();if (xmlHttp==null) { alert ("Your browser does not support AJAX!"); return; } var url="http://www.medindia.net/captcha/reqimgvalue.asp";url=url+"?x="+Math.random();xmlHttp.onreadystatechange=stateChangedReq;xmlHttp.open("GET",url,true);xmlHttp.send(null);} function stateChangedReq(){if (xmlHttp.readyState==4){var seccode=xmlHttp.responseText;if(seccode==document.getElementById("scode").value){//alert(seccode + "same value");}else{document.getElementById("scode").value=xmlHttp.responseText;}}}function GetXmlHttpObject(){var xmlHttpNew=null;try { // Firefox, Opera 8.0+, Safari xmlHttpNew=new XMLHttpRequest(); }catch (e) { // Internet Explorer try { xmlHttpNew=new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP"); } catch (e) { xmlHttpNew=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); } }return xmlHttpNew;}function GetXmlHttpObject(){var xmlHttp=null;try { // Firefox, Opera 8.0+, Safari xmlHttp=new XMLHttpRequest(); }catch (e) { // Internet Explorer try { xmlHttp=new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP"); } catch (e) { xmlHttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); } }return xmlHttp;} X function fnsearch(){day1 = document.search.SelDay.value;month1 = document.search.SelMonth.value;year1 = document.search.SelYear.value;tmpdate=month1+"/"+day1+"/"+year1 fromdate=new Date(year1,month1-1,day1)if (!((fromdate.getDate()==day1)&&(fromdate.getMonth()+1==month1)&&(fromdate.getFullYear()==year1))){alert("Please Select a valid Date")document.search.SelDay.focus();return false;}tmpcatid=document.search.ncategoryid.value;tmpkeyword=document.search.keyword.value;document.search.action="http://www.medindia.net/news/newsday_list.asp?ddate="+tmpdate+"&ncategoryid=" +tmpcatid +"&keyword=" +tmpkeywordreturn true;}News Categories:   Latest Health News Popular News AIDS/HIV News Alcohol & Drug Abuse News Alternative Medicine News Anti-Aging News Bird Flu News Cancer News Celebrity Health News Chikungunya News Child Health News Cholesterol News Clinical Trials News Corporate News Dengue News Dental News Diabetes News Diet & Nutrition News Drug News Education News Environmental Health General News Genetics & Stem Cells News Health Insurance News Heart Disease News Hospital News Hypertension News Indian Health News Lifestyle News Medical Gadgets Medical PDA News Medico Legal News Men?s Health News Mental Health News News on IT in Healthcare Nursing Profession News Obesity News Organ Donation News Research News Respiratory Disease News Senior Health News Sexual Health News Tropical Disease News Weight Loss Women Health News Diabetes Health Center


View the original article here

0 comments:

Post a Comment