Bernadet Albers will lead a faith conversation at the Lourdes grotto in Driebergen on September 20. The discussion, which begins at 9:45 a.m., will be broadcast on NPO 2.
Albers is a volunteer who has visited Lourdes approximately 40 times and helps organize and guide pilgrimages for the Archdiocese of Utrecht. She served as a team leader for the diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes earlier this year, which included 1,500 pilgrims. Albers describes Lourdes as a place for meeting oneself, others, and God, noting that the site is now often viewed as a place of hope and comfort rather than just a location for miracles.
The conversation will be followed by a televised Eucharist celebration at 10:00 a.m. on NPO 2, led by Ed Smeets from the Diocese of Roermond. The grotto where the programs are filmed is located on the grounds of the former Rijsenburg seminary. Built around 1900, the grotto fell into disrepair after the seminary closed in 1968 and lost its statue of Mary until a new statue was placed there during the grotto's restoration in 2016.
SourcesDiocese of Utrecht
