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Ingrid Betancourt on Pilgrimage to Lourdes, July 14, 2008

(Translated from La Croix, 14-07-2008)

www.la-croix.com

Saturday, 12 July, Ingrid Betancourt chose to take some private time first of all before the Blessed Sacrament in the Adoration Chapel behind the Church of St. Bernadette before heading to the Grotto at noon, the hour of the Angelus, under a steady rain.

The Religious of the Assumption surrounded her during the pilgrimage. “She asked that we be there to pray with her, since she was educated at one of our schools, on the rue de Lübeck, in Paris,” explained Sr. Catherine Lienard, of the Assumption Center of Lourdes. The alumna of Lübeck was overjoyed to meet Sr. Marie Saint-Augustin and Sr. Mercedes, two octogenarians who had known her when she was in primary school, between 1968 and 1974. “Without the spiritual foundations that you gave me, I wouldn’t have been able to hold myself together so well in captivity,” she confided to them, as she rendered homage to Mother Marie Eugénie Milleret, the foundress of this congregation that forms “women of faith and action.”

Welcomed at the Grotto by the local bishop, Jacques Perrier, Ms. Betancourt prayed two decades of the rosary with her mother, her children Melanie and Lorenzo, her sister and her nephews.

“Thank you, Mary, thank you for my liberty, thank you for life.”

Thank you, Mary, thank you for my liberty, thank you for life,” she murmured into the microphone. “I beg you, dear Mary - I love you so much - take care of those who are still back there [the 700 other hostages]; they need your strength, your hope and your light,” she added. Her peaceful face, turned toward the statue of the Virgin, shone with a great serenity. Last March 21, Good Friday, a prayer for Ingrid had been organized in this same place by Lourdes Magazine. The ex-hostage of the FARC wanted to show her gratitude, since she considers that her liberation is “a miracle.”

Without acting like a VIP, attentive to each one, constantly touching the home-made rosary that never leaves her right wrist, she lit a candle and drank from the water of the spring. Her pilgrimage ended with a very short press release at the Saint Bernadette amphitheater, where the pope will address the French bishops in September. “Those who are suffering need a voice,” she said, once more evoking her companions who are still being held in the jungle. “We want to protect her desire for privacy, and we welcome her witness to the faith with an immense respect,” commented Bishop Perrier, the “guardian of the grotto.”

“What touches me about this woman is the harmonious coherence between her ardent faith, the love of her family – a family of today – and her engagement in the service of others,” he said, revealing in two words the secret of Ingrid Betancourt: “Live for. . . .”

On Sunday, Father Federico Lombardi, director of the press bureau of the Holy See, indicated that Ingrid Betancourt will have an audience with Benedict XVI this autumn.

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Ingrid Betancourt at Lourdes, with her mother and Bishop Perrier

Ingrid and her mother with Assumption Sisters in Lourdes

Speaking to Mary and to the crowd

Surrounded by her family