Will Heaven

This was first published in the Catholic Herald on 8th August, 2008

The Order of Malta Volunteers are famous for being noisy, hectic and deeply caring, says Will Heaven

My alarm clock rings out and, involuntarily, I step out of bed. It’s 5.50 am and duty in the Saint Frai Hospital starts in just 40 minutes. Before waking the Hospital Pilgrims, though, there is the daunting challenge of waking my own equipe. It is made up of 10 sixth-formers and a couple of students: they don’t like early mornings any more than I do.

By some miracle - or perhaps the threat of having water poured on them - the equipe is gathered in the hotel foyer by 6.15, dressed and ready. Catherine, my co-equipe leader, has successfully risen the girls, some of whom were in the bar until closing time last night. Mercifully everyone looks awake - breakfast, I assure them, is not too far away.

Understandably, the first-timers look apprehensive. It is their first major duty. We will be waking, washing and dressing the Hospital Pilgrims - most of whom have difficulty moving unaided. By 7.30, the “HPs” must be ready for their breakfast, or I’ll be in trouble with them, as well as the equipe on duty in the dining room. We leave on time, me leading the way and consequently feeling like a teacher on an early morning school trip.

The Order of Malta Volunteers (OMV) is a unique charity in that it is run entirely by young people - its chairman, Adam Fudakowski, is only 24. Although the OMV has an experienced medical team of doctors and nurses, the overall organisation falls mostly to students, sixth-formers and recent graduates. But remarkably the OMV continues to get bigger, running other activities throughout the year. It is affiliated to the Order of Malta, but has been self governing and self-financing since its 1974 foundation.

Now, the annual pilgrimage to Lourdes takes over 220 helpers and 60 HPs. Included in this number are five doctors, four priests, two nuns and 12 nurses - all volunteers themselves. The OMV raises most of its funds from the renowned White Knights’ Ball held at London’s Grosvenor Hotel every January, but much of its funding comes from the contributions of its members and friends. The OMV is proud that the HPs do not have to pay for their pilgrimage.

My equipe arrives at the hospital to take over from those on night duty. They are wearing baggy blue scrubs and look exhausted - night duty often means no sleep and, as I found out later, long games of Trivial Pursuit against other pilgrimages in the hospital. We split up: girls to wake up the female HPs and boys to wake up the men.

As a fourth-year helper, it is up to me to supervise waking the HPs, making sure that my first-timers get stuck in. Knowing how to help a disabled person is difficult if you have never even met one before, but the HPs patiently provide pointers and advice. For many, no matter how immobile, communication is not a problem. I laugh as I hear one HP jokingly tell a first-timer that he needs “a stiff upper-lip” to complete the task at hand.

Most of the OMV have at some point attended one of the southern Catholic schools: Downside, Worth, the London Oratory, St Mary’s Shaftesbury or St Mary’s Ascot, for example. But recently the OMV has been spreading its reach to other schools. Indeed, it must be the only organisation in the world to diversify by beginning to recruit from Eton. As you would expect with any large group of youngsters, the pilgrimage to Lourdes is unashamedly social at times. Many friends are made and, fittingly, there have even been a few OMV marriages - another reason why parents like to help with the cost of the pilgrimage.

It’s 7.25 now. We are getting there slowly, but one HP is still being showered. I notice water pouring out under the door at end of the ward.

“Would you two hurry up in there and stop messing around?” I yell.

“It’s Simon,” the first-time helper shouts back. “He’s trying to soak me!”

I walk away grinning. Simon, an HP, enjoys being a handful.

For many HPs, the week in Lourdes is one of the highlights of their year. As well as a pilgrimage, it is a holiday, for some the only chance to get away. The same goes for the HPs’ parents or carers back in Britain - no one can pretend that looking after a loved one with a disability is without its stresses and strains, so many take the opportunity to get away.

But as a place of pilgrimage, Lourdes has been said to “hang somewhere between heaven and earth”. It’s difficult to see this on first arrival. The town is crammed with what Malcolm Muggeridge termed “the bric-a-brac of piety”. Shops sell weird holograms of Padre Pio, kitsch glow-in-the-dark rosaries and Marian cigarette lighters.

But step into the Domaine - the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes - and immediately the hubbub is replaced by tranquility. Many lapsing Catholics find to their surprise that the grotto, where Our Lady appeared to St Bernadette, is an easy place to pray. The daily processions in the Domaine also provide a spectacle, with the torch-lit procession ending in front of the basilica in the evening. Ten million pilgrims are expected to come here in this, the 150th anniversary year of the apparitions: Lourdes makes Mecca seem almost trivial.

It’s 7.30 am. The HPs are happily on their way to the dining room and we’re off duty. Or rather, we need to rush back and have breakfast before choir practice and Mass. As I walk back from the hospital, it dawns on me that I made a silly promise last night with regards to the party at the end of the week.

Mass goes according to plan. We sing music which the HPs and long-term helpers have come to know and love. After Mass, badges are presented; red ones for fourth years and white ones for those in their 10th year of pilgrimage. Rob, an HP who knows how to work the crowd, gets his second white badge - it’s his 20th year with the OMV, and he walks off holding it up like it is the World Cup Trophy.

By Friday - many duties, Masses and sunny walkabouts later - the pilgrimage is nearing its closure. The HPs are flying back the next day and most helpers feel worn out. First, however, is the infamous OMV party. The HPs are taken out to a meal at a restaurant before being treated to an evening of talents, sing-a-longs and ritual humiliation. As tipsily promised, I end up singing a duet in drag. There is much laughter, and first-timers realise why the HPs talk about the party all week.

Back in 1984 one of the nuns in charge of the Sainte Bernadette Hospital told the ward co-ordinator that the OMV were the noisiest, untidiest, least punctual of any pilgrimage she had ever met, but that they showed more real love and care for their HPs than any other. She was probably right: there is often a sense of chaos with the OMV, but it’s beneficial, and things seem to fall into place eventually.

Maria Jepps, an HP, once wrote that: “Lourdes is not a place, it’s an experience.” Until you go there, you might not realise that she is right.

To find out more about becoming a volunteer, visit www.omv.org.uk. If you would like to make a donation to the work of OMV, e-mail Adam Fudakowski at chairman@omv.org.uk

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