48 Travel to Service in Lourdes

By Phoenix journalist Hope Gharagozlo ’21:
Lourdes, France is a place where dozens of Kellenberg students went for spiritual refreshment and soul searching this summer. Students apply in their junior year after the application process is complete, trip moderators Mr. and Mrs. Harnisch select students. On the first trip to Lourdes, the mission itself was new and not as many people knew about it so Kellenberg was only able to take 13 students. This year 48 students traveled to the holy site.
Mr. Harnisch, who supervises and plans the journey to Lourdes, describes the trip: “The Lourdes mission is not like a day at Kellenberg. It’s probably not an experience you’d even have anywhere other than Lourdes. And for each student, it’s a different experience.”
Dates for the trip have changed throughout each year. Last year, the first trip left the day after comprehensive exams and the second trip left July 11. In 2019, it is the hope of the moderators that the trips leave on similar dates.
Students who have gone on this amazing missionary experience have described the trip as life-changing, magnificent, and, “Something that you will possibly never be able to feel again in this lifetime.”
Service varies day-to-day. Most of the service is in the form of assisting the malades (French meaning “the sick”) as they make their own pilgrimage to the grotto, the baths, the basilicas, the daily Eucharistic procession or the nightly rosary procession. The students also served in L’Accueli Notre Dame, a combination hotel and hospital where the sick who need continual medical care are able to stay when visiting Lourdes.
Every single day at Lourdes was described by the young Kellenberg missionaries as an amazing experience that is never to be forgotten. A variety of students with different interests go on this trip with hardly any knowledge of one another, but by the end of the trip, a bond that is more than unbreakable is clear.