HCPT Lourdes pilgrimage to celebrate ‘angels among us’

More than 2,000 pilgrims with Hosanna House and Children’s Pilgrimage Trust are to arrive in Lourdes over the Easter weekend for the largest annual children’s pilgrimage to visit the shrine in Southern France annually.

More than 1300 people are going from England, Wales and Scotland, including 282 children and young people with disabilities and other needs, accompanied by 1018 volunteers including 45 clergy and 44 nurses. They are organised into 67 local pilgrimage groups, cared for by voluntary helpers, including doctors, nurses and chaplains. Ireland alone has 46 groups. International groups are joining from Belgium, Croatia, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, U.S. and West Indies. It is a youthful pilgrimage, with school service groups offering young people faith formation and the experience of working with and learning from vulnerable children as part of the HCPT experience.

Bishop Paul Mason, Bishop of the Forces and a frequent helper for HCPT’s Easter and summer pilgrimages since the 1990s, is leading the 2025 pilgrimage and will be the main celebrant at the Trust Mass on 24 April. Alongside will be Archbishop Leo Cushley of St Andrews and Edinburgh, Archbishop Manuel Cruz of Newark in the U.S. Bishop Frank Dougan of Galloway, Bishop Joseph Toal of Motherwell and Bishop Donal McKeown of Derry.

The theme of this year’s HCPT liturgies is “Angels among us”, presented by the HCPT North East region. The Angel of the North sculpture is at the centre of the logo and badge. Participants will be encouraged to recognise and celebrate all who are, or who have been “angels among us” and to think about being like an angel for others too. The badge is also a stained glass mosaic. Glass making has a long history in the North East – the first stained glass to be produced in Britain was made in Sunderland in 674. North East HCPT said, “In a stained glass window, each small piece of glass is an important and precious piece of a beautiful big window, a window that tells a story of faith, hope and love.” Every young person on the pilgrimage will receive a knitted angel as a gift from the North East region.

Group Masses will be held in such chapels as the Sheepfold, St Gabriel’s and Mater Misericordiae, and groups undertake the Stations of the Cross by the River Gave. The torchlight procession is a favourite part of the week. Groups can visit the prison cell where St Bernadette lived at the time of the apparitions in 1858.

There are group outings to HCPT’s Hosanna House in the foothills of the Pyrenees and to Gavarnie in the heart of the Pyrenees National Park, where many groups have Mass in the Church of St John the Baptist, a refuge for medieval pilgrims on their way to visit Santiago de Compostela.

The HCPT pilgrimage is smaller than usual this year because Easter clashes with the school holidays and therefore many teacher volunteers and children and young people are unable to travel. Numbers are expected to be up again in 2026 for the special 70th anniversary pilgrimage of HCPT. The volunteer-based UK charity was founded in 1956 in response to Our Lady’s invitation to go on pilgrimage to Lourdes

The HCPT sponsored “2025 Cycle to Lourdes” was expected to arrive on Good Friday. A team of 16 cyclists plus a support team travelled 550 miles from Versailles to join the pilgrimage, raising more than £35,000. 

Meanwhile, Arundel and Brighton Diocese has compiled a “wish list” of equipment urgently needed to for its annual pilgrimage to Lourdes in July. Donors are invited to purchase essential items to for ill pilgrims ranging from shower chairs (retailing on Amazon at £59.99) to pressure-relieving mattresses (available for £172.80) and bed rails, blood pressure monitors and thermometers (£15.99).

“Each year, our diocesan pilgrimage takes hundreds of pilgrims to Lourdes – answering Our Lady’s call to prayer, healing, and community,” said the diocese in a statement.

Many of the 700 or more pilgrims “require physical assistance to make this journey,” the diocese added. “It is the pilgrimage’s mission to ensure they do make their pilgrimage safely, comfortably, and with dignity.”

Alex Manko, director of the pilgrimage said: “In Lourdes, we lean on one another – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. But to make this pilgrimage happen, we also rely on the generosity of others.”

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