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An Addict’s
Pilgrimage to Lourdes and Taize Paul Cullen has been with our community for over a year.he came to us on heroin and entered our Rehab Unit.During the summer he joined a group of people on Pilgrimage to Lourdes,the French shrine that attracts thousands of people each year.He also speaks about his trip to Taize. I was in treatment for drug addiction when one of the support workers told me about her experience with a charity called HCPT (Handicapped Childre n ’s Pilgrimage Trust) and her visit to Lourdes in France. HCPT is a trust that arranges and organises trips to L o u rdes for people with various disabilities, and are always short of helpers/carers . . . It sounded interesting – a chance for me to go abroa d for the first time in my life, to fly for the first time, and in regard to my recovery from drug addiction, to give a little back, having received so much... That was in December 2000. And soon enough I was passported up, money in my pocket and meeting the coach in Chorley, Lancashire to take us to Liverpool airport at 4.00am on Friday 22 June. At about 5.30am I saw what seemed to be my first sunrise in years, and it was beautiful. That was at Liverpool...about fourteen hours later, I watched that same sun set over the Pyrennes mountains from Hosanna House in Lourdes . Everything was magic. The whole week. I was caring for an autistic boy called Andrew who reminded me of the giant out of the movie The Green Mile. I was staying up late talking to the chaplain who came with us. Talking about life and the simple joys, the little moments that seem so insignificant to others, but to myself, I wouldn’t , couldn’t put a price on them...Like the bonding I did with so many people there. Kerry, a young woman who is wheelchair bound, has difficulty talking and can’t feed herself properly. She became a dear friend. There was something incredible about being asked by this wonderful young woman if I would help her to eat her dinner. The very act of putting a fork into another’s mouth is so very humbling, and requires blind trust in a person you know little of. I found myself without the usual boundaries that are ingrained in society. People broke down and cried at the Masses, when certain hymns were sung or a popular song was played. I saw beautiful churches and had amazing conversations with people I can’t imagine ever seeing again...And yes, I fell in a sort of love with one of the carers...And yes she was beautiful, but at Hosanna House you see a different kind of beauty in people too. You see someone helping another because they want too. People exhibit their best qualities in a situation like that. I got an opportunity to look at myself in a way I never had done before. I really saw things in a new perspective. I’ve always been a fan of technology, media, news, films and information. Yet, there I was stuck in a house in the hills, with no electrical comforts, (NOT EVEN MY MOBILE PHONE) and I didn’t care. I interacted with people on a deeper and more emotional level. I saw fragility and brokeness worn quite openly and realised that it’s one of the greatest strengths that we humans possess, if only we can get past some of the ingrained attitudes that now seem so prevalent in our society. We are all equal. The good and the bad, the abled and the disabled. We all need each other to function together as a society. Each of us is a tiny thread in a beautiful rich tapestry that is ever growing and becomes more beautiful in a different way each day. I’ll finish with an image that stays with me and makes me cry to think about it...At Liverpool airport on the 29 June 2001. Clinically depressed at the thought of leaving these people, I gave Kerry a hug and she broke down in floods of tears, saying she was going to miss me so much. I, of course, cried, choking back the lump in my throat...And then she asked me, in front of the carer who’d come to collect her, if I would push her out to the minibus waiting for her one last time...Beautiful ! |
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