Bishop's Address

Carfin is a place of pilgrimage for the future… that may sound rather odd to people who have to come on a day, an afternoon or an evening pilgrimage to our Grotto. For Carfin has provided an escape from the pressures of “the market place” and given the space needed for quiet reflection on other things. Those other things belong to a different kind of experience which we need but which we cannot see. In a few words, those things are what we call our spiritual needs.

Carfin has offered the opportunity for that kind of experience over most of this century, nor do I doubt but that it will continue to do so in the future.  Up to now, however, that has been an offer made to the local community in the West Central Scotland. Now we are opening our gates to people of every religion. To offer them a haven of peace and prayer.

It is no less true that many other day visitors to Carfin are drawn from other parts of Scotland and northern England , especially from Newcastle , Preston and Liverpool . Significant numbers of such people will continue to come from all those areas in the years ahead.  The Lourdes Grotto at Carfin has much to offer that clientele.

 In Carfin’s shrines and statues we see a powerful image of much that was dear to the faith communities of earlier decades of this century. In the Grotto areas, a large garden of flowers, fountains, trees and places of contemplation, the day visitor has the opportunity to step back from the world of noise and confusion and breathe in again the things of the spirit. That is the abiding allure of the Lourdes Grotto at Carfin.

The grotto at Carfin is a holy place, made holy by visits to it of holy people in the past 65 years. The grotto is their memorial and gift to the people of today, all of what lies in wait for today’s visitor to Carfin.  But Carfin will offer more to visitors and pilgrims over the coming years. In 1994/5, a Visitor’s Centre was established, with a themed gift shop and a fast-food facility, able to cater for the needs of 400 pilgrims.

At the heart of the Visitor’s Centre is a theatre which screens a video of the theme of PILGRIMAGE.  That theme has been chose to illustrate why people of different religions or none, go to visit the great pilgrimages centres of the worlds, Jerusalem, Rome, Compostella, Mecca, Lourdes, Lough Derg, Iona or whatever.

Why do many people make such hard or difficult journeys? Carfin will attempt to provide an answer to that question or that search for the people who will come there as tourists in the years to come.

In effect, it is my hope that the Visitor’s Centre will be the Scottish Pilgrimage Centre in the years to come, a place of attraction for people of all ages and all faiths.

That is my Hope

+Bishop Joseph Devine