Saint Joseph NEWS LETTER

Transcription

1 Saint Joseph NEWS LETTER HAPPY NEW YEAR 2019 N 2 January 2019 Forgive me for not wishing you only success and fortune... But with all my heart, May this new year be rich in varied and fraternal encounters, May it be enlightened with the joy of a benevolent glance at others and on yourself, May it be radiant with the hope of a future that is always open, May it be animated by projects and desires both beautiful and great, May it burn with tenderness and loving attention May it be iridescent with smiles and outstretched hands, May it be radiant with joy and peace. My wish for you also, in this year which is beginning, is that you might be able to experience an encounter within the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes that is prayerful, fraternal and warm; That you might meet the Lord God Jesus Christ and encounter His Word of life and love with the help of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph our patron saints. And that, as a result, your life may be whole and your heart pacified. Vice-President, in charge of St Joseph Service WHO S WHO and WHO DOES WHAT? Councillor, Responsable de service, Chef d équipe? COUNCILLOR The services of the Hospitalité of Our Lady of Lourdes are managed and facilitated by a Council ( Conseil de Service ), each one made up of full members of HNDL ( Titulaires ) According to the statutes of the Association, these advisors are co-opted by the Service Council; Their mandate is 4 years, renewable twice. The Council of Saint Joseph Service is made up of 18 members, one of whom is elected as Head of Service ( Responsable de Service ) who is then appointed or confirmed in the post by the Bishop. The Councillors deputise for the Head of Service when they are actually in service (usually one councillor per week, sometimes two). They are really the people responsible for the day-to-day operation of the service, for the management of the hospitaliers and the stagiaires and for how they are assigned to the internal services. They are the ones who have to manage problems and incidents, but also prevent those from happening in the first place by being present in the services observing and listening to feedback from those in charge of each area of service and from the hospitaliers. It is the duty Councillor who welcomes stagiaires who hope to make their engagement; it is the duty Councillor who appoints hospitaliers to take charge of each area of service and

2 gives them their red straps ( bretelles rouges ) but also the team leaders ( chefs d équipe ) in close cooperation with whoever is in charge of the stagiaires desk ( Accueil Stagiaires ). The tasks and responsibilities of the Duty Councillor are many and varied, from liaison with the other HNDL services (and also with the services of the Sanctuary) to the allocation of parking permits for the St Michel car park and managing the issue of red badges for those who work at the airport. Being a duty councillor means having total responsibility for the day-to-day running of the St Joseph Service - but that doesn t exclude the possibility of delegating (see below) RESPONSABLE de SERVICE INTERNE. Each week one or two hospitaliers are placed in charge of each of the areas for which the Saint Joseph Service is responsible and thus become Internal Service Managers ( Responsables de Service Interne ) Those responsibilities comprise the service of welcome at the Rail Station and Airport, at the Accueil Notre-Dame and the Accueil Saint Frai and also at our own welcome desks for hospitaliers and stagiaires but also service in the Sanctuary (Grotto, Ceremonies, the Plateau outside the baths and inside the men s baths). These managers have to take responsibility for the organisation of the work and the allocation of hospitaliers and stagiaires to different tasks in their area but also for ensuring good relations with all the other stakeholders in the place(s) where they work employees and other volunteers in the Sanctuary or in external services, and pilgrims, be they in organised pilgrimages or coming as individuals. They need to be fully aware of the job descriptions and technical instructions that have been written for each area to standardise and harmonise the service HNDL offers, particularly in the Sanctuary. They report to the duty councillor at daily meetings. The Service Managers are appointed by the duty councilor, after a period being mentored by other HNDL responsables, and validated by the Head of Saint Joseph Service. Being an Internal Service Manager means being the representative of the Hospitalité Notre-Dame de Lourdes in ones place of service, it means knowing how to manage the hospitalers and stagiaires in ones charge and being accountable to the duty Councillor. CHEF d EQUIPE Every week the Saint Joseph Service welcomes stagiaires (a French word roughly equivalent to trainees or interns - not a very pleasant term but it is the one that exists); These stagiaires are grouped together in teams, according to how experienced they are, and placed under the responsibility of a team leader who must manage them, take them to the services where they are expected - but much more than that, especially for the first years. Being a team leader, especially for newcomers in their first year, is the most important, most risky but also the most rewarding and most exhilarating position of responsibility in the Hospitalité. The first year team leader is the one who is remembered because it is he who welcomes, who leads, who Bernadette lend me your clogs reassures, who explains and above all who guides those in his charge and convinces them that serving in the Hospitalité has a meaning and that HNDL is a safe, loving family that gives a purpose to our service and which can even serve as a refuge in the difficult moments of life. The team leader assures the link between the stagiaires and the Formation Service (Saint Bernadette) by explaining to the stagiaires that we all need to discover or rediscover the Message of Lourdes. And he serves as a point of contact between his team and both the internal service managers and the councillor(s), to whom he reports every day. Team leaders are appointed, each week, by the councillor with the agreement of the people in charge of the stagiaires and hospitaliers desks who have to assess the aptitudes of the hospitaliers and the stagiaires (yes, even stagiaires!!!) who likely to be able to take on such an important role. "It is better to have a good stagiaire who has a sense of human relations than a hospitalier who cannot adapt to life in a team." This team leader position is so important and so absorbing that recognized and validated team leaders should consider changing positions (by becoming an internal service manager, why not!!) after 4 or 5 years. For we must be ready to reappraise ourselves each time we take on this post.

3 30 OF OUR BRETELLES ARE MISSING!!!! Bretelles. i.e. straps... once again... bretelles!!!!! To say that our new bretelles have not been a success would be incorrect and out of place!!! Indeed the straps that we wear when we are visibly in service in the Sanctuary are so successful that we are missing 30 of them. Yes, I did say that - thirty of them were not returned after service last year! When the hospitaliers who were there in the last week of the season did a count, how surprised were they to discover that 30 were missing. So, whether by thoughtlessness, inadvertently or through lack of time at the end of the service, clearly some hospitaliers and stagiaires have left Lourdes without handing back their bretelles. This is annoying because the straps do, of course, cost money and, in addition, if every year we lose about thirty of them our stock will soon be depleted - before our very eyes! I invite all those who have borrowed bretelles to send them back to - Hospitalité Notre-Dame de Lourdes Accueil Jean-Paul II 1, avenue Mgr Théas BP LOURDES Cedex France by parcel post, by special carrier or by any other means at their disposal, before the end of January When the next St Joseph Service Council meeting takes place on February 10 th 2019 we would not like to have to introduce drastic measures and perhaps even a deposit for bretelles to be issued. Bretelles are a visible sign of service ; they belong to HNDL and not to each individual hospitalier or stagiaire ; let us be honest towards HNDL, with our comrades with whom we serve and perhaps even with ourselves if we want to truly belong to the great Hospitalité Family. LOURDES : GESTURES OF WELCOME "Go and tell the priests to have a chapel built here and for people to come here in procession." This sentence, which the Holy Virgin said to Bernadette during the 13th apparition, can probably be described as one of the main messages of Our Lady of Lourdes. Today, 160 years later, countless pilgrims from all over the world respond to this invitation. They follow the call of the Blessed Virgin and come to Lourdes in the footsteps of Our Lady of Lourdes and Saint Bernadette. For 133 years, HNDL has had the mission of welcoming pilgrims, sick or healthy, into this sanctuary of Lourdes and to walk with them along part of their pilgrim journey. The hospitalier is often the first and last person with whom the pilgrim comes into contact in Lourdes. During his or her stay in Lourdes, the daily life of the Pilgrim is marked by meetings with stagiaires and hospitaliers, whether in the baths, at the grotto or during the liturgical celebrations. This mission is for us members of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Lourdes a grace and a gift. It often presents us with great challenges, not always easy to master, because they require a high degree of patience and humility. So what can help us accomplish this mission that has been entrusted to us by the Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes? How can we become ever more aware of this vocation, again and again? Those of us who come to Lourdes as a stagiaire or a hospitalier come to serve our neighbour, whoever that may be. We are there to serve, not to be served. To do this, it is necessary that during our service we act with humility. To be humble is above all to open up completely to the needs of our pilgrim brothers and sisters and to place them at the centre of our service. Pope Francis said in June of last year: "To be an instrument of God, Christians need hope and humility." Bernadette, never appeared arrogant, she remained filled with a profound modesty and humility throughout her life. This humility was particularly evident in the devotion with which, in the convent of Saint-Gildard in Nevers, she devoted herself to the service of her sisters and the task of prayer.

4 Patience is also an important sign of humility. Patience is a demanding challenge for many of us and not just during our stay in Lourdes. Sometimes we can find ourselves in situations where our patience is put to the test and where we are tempted to get carried away and lose our temper. But here too, we can take Bernadette as our example. : during the apparitions she often encountered misunderstanding, disbelief and envy from those around her. But Bernadette never complained. She accepted all this with deep patience, patience that she drew from her unshakeable trust in God. If we let ourselves be impregnated with that patience and humility we will be able to meet our brothers and sisters again and again and look on them with renewed tenderness. Finally, it is also important (if not the most important thing of all) to never forget the joy in our service that fills us in Lourdes and this joy can be expressed by our smile. When we remember the first meetings between St. Bernadette and the Blessed Virgin, they took place in the silence of prayer, Mary greeted Bernadette with a smile the smile is international and connects over and above all language barriers. language. It does not cost EVENINGS AT THE GROTTO Why not a new internal service or, at least, an extension of the Ceremonies and "Help With Prayer at the Grotto" services? The chaplains responsible for prayer at the Grotto have informed us of their wish and, indeed the need to maintain peace and quiet and to ensure that visitors to the Grotto behave correctly from 8 p.m - 11 p.m. i.e between the setting up of the Marian Torchlight Procession and the start of the night Mass. We all appreciate a time of meditation and prayer before the Grotto in the calm and the gentleness of the evening. Alas, too often there is a certain "disorder" there : loud conversations and questions, people taking a very long time to pose for photos, occasional bottlenecks when people stop for long periods beneath the rock, inappropriate gestures and outfits, and so forth. us anything and yet it can express so many things. A smile goes directly from one heart to another. When we meet the pilgrims with a smile, we reflect the smile of the Virgin in the Grorro of Massabielle, giving them something of the joy of the risen Christ that we Christians proclaim in our lives. If we can do that we have accomplished the most important thing in our mission. I will conclude by quoting Pope St John Paul II, who said in Lourdes, on August 15th, 1983, Feast of the Assumption: It is not without regret, it is not without nostalgia, that every pilgrim must leave such a place of grace. Even more so the Successor of Peter, who was able to approach like Bernadette the place where the Immaculate Conception showed her face and said her name, who was able to lay down there the heavy intentions of his universal charge and pray with a whole people of believers. I experienced a joy there that is impossible to put into words. Dear friends in Hospitalité, my wish for you is that you may encounter that inexpressible joy in your service in Lourdes and that it may fill you more and more. Dominique FRÊCHE During our February 2019 Council meeting we will have to address the introduction of this new service, which will only be feasible during the periods when we are sufficient in number (a minimum of 3 or 4 hospitaliers(ères) will be required if we are to take it on). This service may perhaps be suggested to you when you next come on stage, on a voluntary basis as the hours on duty (8 11 p.m.) will be outside the usual timeframe. Think about it when you arrive, as it can be a service of great richness and, above all that, one which will allow us to more fully secure the position of Saint Joseph in service at the Grotto. Hospitalité Notre Dame de Lourdes - Accueil Jean Paul II BP Lourdes Cedex France Service Saint Joseph tél. (33) (0) st-joseph1@wanadoo.fr ou resp-st-joseph@wanadoo.fr Président de l HNDL : Bertrand CLERC-RENAUD Vice-Président Responsable du Service Saint Joseph : France.Conseillers du Service Saint Joseph :Giacomo BARONE It - Gerard BENNETT Ir. - Michel CHATAGNON F.Henri DAUSSE F- Antonio DIELLA It - Vincent FOSSE F Dominique FRECHES Austria - Philippe FROMENTIN F. - Francesc Javier GAMBUS FREIXA Esp - Alexandre GIAMPICCOLO F.- Juan Carlos GONZALEZ GARCIA Esp - Antonio MATURO It - Fabien METAIS F. - Patrick MONNET F.- Emmanuel RION F.- Patrice de la RUPELLE F. - Paul WHITBOURN G.B.

5 Hospitalité Notre Dame de Lourdes - Accueil Jean Paul II BP Lourdes Cedex France Service Saint Joseph tél. (33) (0) st-joseph1@wanadoo.fr ou resp-st-joseph@wanadoo.fr Président de l HNDL : Bertrand CLERC-RENAUD Vice-Président Responsable du Service Saint Joseph : France.Conseillers du Service Saint Joseph :Giacomo BARONE It - Gerard BENNETT Ir. - Michel CHATAGNON F.Henri DAUSSE F- Antonio DIELLA It - Vincent FOSSE F Dominique FRECHES Austria - Philippe FROMENTIN F. - Francesc Javier GAMBUS FREIXA Esp - Alexandre GIAMPICCOLO F.- Juan Carlos GONZALEZ GARCIA Esp - Antonio MATURO It - Fabien METAIS F. - Patrick MONNET F.- Emmanuel RION F.- Patrice de la RUPELLE F. - Paul WHITBOURN G.B.