Logroño, (EFE).- The XXIX Diocesan Pilgrimage with the Sick to Lourdes from La Rioja returns to normal this year after the covid-19 pandemic with 350 participants, a figure higher than that of 2019, who will no longer have to take a test before of the trip or wear masks during it on a mandatory basis.
This was stated to EFE by the president of the Hospitalidad de Nuestra Señora de Lourdes de La Rioja, Federico Díez del Corral, moments before boarding one of the buses that left Logroño for Lourdes on the last weekend of June.
Díez del Corral explained that the increase in the number of participants in this pilgrimage, which ends on the 27th, has meant that “the preparations have been more complex than in other years” so that the sick people who participate can live this experience.
As usual in this initiative, the buses that have left the station in the Rioja capital have not been the only ones, but the around 350 participants have boarded a total of 7 buses that have also left from Arnedo, Calahorra, Nájera and Haro, and some will go through Pamplona to pick up more travelers, he pointed out.
This pilgrimage counts with the participation of the bishop of Calahorra and La Calzada-Logroño, Santos Montoya, who has not left on the buses, but rather goes to Lourdes from Madrid, where he has a previous commitment.
Díez del Corral has specified that the health team that accompanies the pilgrimage is “better than in other years”, having 3 doctors and 5 nurses, who will be vigilant to the care that travelers require, some of them connected to serum and oxygen .
“We are going with caution, with all the medical equipment, the defibrillator and, in addition, a lot of tests so that, if there is an anomaly, we can respond safely”, to which is added that “we wear masks in case they are needed and we notice any outbreak or whatever, that we are prepared ”, he stressed.
healing of the soul
He has highlighted the objective of this pilgrimage to Lourdes to accompany sick people who “have no other way to make this trip” and to facilitate it with means such as health personnel and wheelchairs.
“They are people who, perhaps, have multiple sclerosis and it is difficult for them to be able to go to many places because, sometimes, even when they are in this situation, they do not have anyone to help them,” he stressed, and “we offer ourselves, we are going to visit them and, later, we see the possibilities that they make this trip, which is the only option they have to leave in the year”.
The people who go on this pilgrimage do so, “many times, without expecting a miracle, which there are, people who think that they have no solution in this life and go to see if they are cured”, but “this cure is rather of the soul, which is what is worth the most, and they come very comforted”.
“We are 100 percent at your service, in fact, the whole world devotes these four days to helping the sick, who are the protagonists of our pilgrimage,” he concluded.