On the Sunday morning we headed over to Notre Dame. Firstly we joined the assembled throng of tourists, curious visitors and the faithful for Laudes (Morning Prayer) after which I went off to the sacristy to vest for Mass.
I was asked by the sacristan if I would be able to say part of the Eucharistic Prayer in French. i said that I could, only to be told by the Bishop that he would say the entire prayer himself. It was only after Mass that he told us that by long standing tradition that Mass is braodcast on french radio. I suppose he didn't want some foreigner murdering his way through Mass on public radio.
Not being in your own parish on a Sunday morning means that you don't have to worry about Baptisms, Ukrainian Masses or who going to put things out for the 4:00pm Mass. This meant we were free to wonder around and leisurely take a cup of coffee and a pain au chocolat before heading back to the car and onwards with our journey towards Our Lady's Shrine.
Our next port of call was to be Bordeaux and the Insitute du Bon Pasteur. Again we were trusting Providence by not booking in advance. However this time we did phone to leavea message with the superior to say that we were on our way and that if it was possible to stay then we would be happy to, but if not he was not to worry.
Well it may have been possible to stay, but we will never know. When we arrived at Bordeaux we discovered lots of road works and yellow signs saying 'deviation' Diversion. After almost an hour of driving round in the heat and mounting traffic and having seens large parts of Bordeaux we never intended we decided to cut our losses and head straight for Lourdes.
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