Day 1: Depart home country
Flight toward France. Begin reading the Story of a Soul and the life of St Bernadette.
Opening commissioning prayer at the gate.
Day 2: Arrive & transfer to Lourdes
Arrive in France and travel to Lourdes in the foothills of the Pyrenees, arriving for the famous evening procession.
Join the Marian torchlight procession at the Lourdes sanctuary.
Day 3: Lourdes — the Grotto
A full day at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes: the Grotto of Massabielle, the spring, the baths, and the basilicas. Allow unhurried time at the grotto, the heart of the shrine.
Mass at the Grotto; take the Lourdes water and pray for the sick.
Day 4: Lourdes — Bernadette's life
The sites of St Bernadette's life — the mill of her birth, the 'cachot' where the family lived in poverty — and the hillside Way of the Cross. A gentler, biographical day.
Pray the hillside Stations of the Cross; participate in the anointing or international Mass.
Day 5: Lourdes to Nevers
Travel north to Nevers, the convent of St Gildard, where St Bernadette lived her hidden religious life and where her incorrupt body is venerated in a glass reliquary.
Mass at the convent chapel; quiet prayer before St Bernadette's incorrupt body.
Day 6: Nevers to Lisieux
Continue to Lisieux in Normandy, the town of St Thérèse: the great basilica, the Carmel where she lived, and her family home Les Buissonnets. A full day with the 'Little Flower'.
Mass at the Basilica of St Thérèse; pray her 'little way' at the Carmel.
Day 7: Lisieux to Paris
Drive to Paris, pausing as time allows. First evening in the City of Light.
Evening prayer of arrival; rosary together.
Day 8: Paris — Marian & saintly Paris
The Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal at Rue du Bac (where St Catherine Labouré saw the Virgin), Sacré-Cœur on Montmartre, and the restored Notre-Dame. A devotional day across the city.
Mass at Rue du Bac or Sacré-Cœur; receive a Miraculous Medal.
Day 9: Depart from Paris
A final morning for last prayers or sightseeing before the transfer to the airport.
Closing Mass and a blessing for the road home.
