The pilgrimage season at the Sanctuary of Lourdes promises to be full of new things for 2026, between the complete reopening of the baths, the daily prayer of the Angelus and a renewed call for peace.
A jubilee year, the year 2025 was memorable from many points of view at the Sanctuary of Lourdes, which welcomed no less than four million pilgrims… For this 2026 season, while the great pilgrimages make their return this month of April and until November, it is very likely that the attendance will not be as high in this “ordinary” year. But, as Father Michel Daubanes, rector of the Sanctuary, reminds us, “the ordinary” is always “exceptional” in Lourdes because of what the faithful can experience internally at the time of their passage in the Marian city, and even after.
This year again, millions will converge on the Massabielle Cave. Many will come by train, which in 2026 is celebrating the 160th anniversary of the arrival of the railway in the Marian city, the station having been inaugurated on March 28, 1866. Arriving at the Sanctuary, pilgrims will be welcomed under the sign of the Annunciation, with these words founder of the angel Gabriel to Mary: “Hail, filled with grace, the Lord is with you”.
All baths are now open
Chosen as the theme of the year, this story of the Annunciation will be presented in multiple ways, in addition to the usual celebrations and events at the Sanctuary. Thus, pilgrims are now invited to collect a card where they can write their prayer intentions to leave at the Grotto. Every evening, the thousands of prayer intentions submitted will be “presented to the Virgin at the time of the torchlight procession”. A spiritual journey has also been created to meditate on the Gospel of the Annunciation at different stations within the Sanctuary.
This notably leads the pilgrims to perform the water gesture (washing their hands then their face and drinking), as expressed during the apparitions of the Virgin to Bernadette, at the rotunda of the Good Samaritan (not far from the Chapels of Light). A place dedicated to this spiritual gesture now that the swimming pools are fully operational. Initiated since the Covid crisis, the renovation project of the hydraulic system was in fact completed this winter. “Everything is up to standard,” confides the rector. “All of the baths (to completely immerse yourself in the spring water of the Cave) are now accessible.”
Commitment to peace
Among the other projects carried out before the opening of the season, the Sanctuary carried out the renovation of a reception building in the Youth Village, the application of a new coating on the main bridge spanning the Gave and the replacement of nearly 600 enclosures of the holy place. These will be particularly useful for sounding, throughout the Sanctuary, the Angelus prayer performed every day at noon at the Grotto, a new feature for this 2026 season.
We must save the Stations of the Cross of the Espélugues
Following an in-depth heritage diagnosis, the entire Stations of the Cross of the Espélugues, located on Mount Piedebat, reveals a worrying state of conservation. It is now urgent to restore it. This is why the Sanctuary is launching, in partnership with the city’s hoteliers and merchants, a microdonation system by bank card in order to finance this restoration, the amount of which amounts to €200,000. Concretely, when paying by credit card at the reception of certain hotels or businesses, customers can choose to add a donation of 1 euro. A simple, quick and entirely voluntary gesture in favor of the heritage of the Sanctuary.
Finally, throughout the year, the Sanctuary invites pilgrims to pray for peace. An exhibition on the “Pilgrimage of Return”, which brought together 100,000 prisoners of war in Lourdes in 1946 (the day after the Second World War) at the initiative of Father Jean Rodhain, can be found along Boulevard Rémi Sempé. For its part, the Catholic movement for peace, Pax Christi, offers every day at 4 p.m. a “walk to the sources of peace” within the Sanctuary. So many proposals and novelties which will nourish the 2026 season of pilgrimages to Lourdes…
