Celebrating 100 years of Wimbledon College in Lourdes
We're in the May 2024 edition of Edgeways, the parish magazine of Sacred Heart Wimbledon!
In February 1858, an insignificant peasant girl from an insignificant little town in southwest France went to collect some firewood by a cave near the river. There Saint Bernadette met Our Lady – and so began the remarkable story of Lourdes. Millions of pilgrims visit Lourdes annually, including many who are sick or disabled. Answering Mary’s requests, they come in procession to pray for the world and wash in the waters of the grotto.
Wimbledon College’s connection to Lourdes began in 1923, when Fr John Manning SJ led the first group of students there. After a 30-hour journey by train and ferry, the boys served as stretcherbearers or brancardiers, assisting pilgrims to and from Lourdes’ hospitals, baths, processions, and many bars and cafés. Every year since, a group of Old Wimbledonians has travelled to Lourdes to spend a week in service of Our Lady, a tradition interrupted only by the Second World War.
You might be surprised to learn that ‘Wimbledon’ is a hefty name in Lourdes’ volunteering community. In the Rosary Basilica, there is even a stone dedicated to the war dead of Sacred Heart Wimbledon and Wimbledon College. Our members – which include not just old boys, but families, friends, and former teachers – volunteer across Lourdes’ many services, from bathing pilgrims to training volunteers, and from assisting in hospitals to marshalling torchlight processions.
But ‘Wimbledon’ is particularly distinguished for its work at the station, where we help wheelchair users and pilgrims on stretchers on and off their trains. We are often the first smiles they see after their long journeys. A poem by one of our members immortalises our work at the station; a copy is given to every volunteer to remind them of the meaning of our service.
Last August 2023, we celebrated one hundred years of Wimbledon College in Lourdes with a special pilgrimage accompanied by former headmaster Fr Michael Holman SJ and joined by many veterans of our association. Reflecting on his first year in Lourdes, recent leaver Jeremy compared its spirit to a ‘ripple of love spreading far beyond the grotto’.
Lourdes is a thriving place of international friendship, where the poor, sick, and marginalised are exalted. As Fr Peter Griffiths SJ, one of our regular chaplains, reflected: ‘This is one of the few places in the world in which we can be certain that Heaven actually touches Earth: Our Lady’s footprints are on that grotto.’
May Lourdes’ story of faith, service, and community continue to inspire those who visit this sacred place, and generations of Wimbledon College to come.
Would you like to join us in Lourdes? This 23–27 August 2024, Fr Michael will accompany a non-volunteering pilgrimage, and you’re invited! For more information, contact wimbledonlourdes100@gmail.com.
A version of this post was printed in the May 2024 edition of Edgeways, the parish magazine of Sacred Heart Wimbledon, alongside a copy of Jim Larner’s poem. With thanks to David Hurst for his editorial expertise.