When 51-year-old Jean-Pierre Bely went to Lourdes in 1987, he had been suffering from multiple sclerosis for three years. By then the French social welfare system had declared him 100 per cent disabled.

On the last day of his pilgrimage, Mr Bely went to confession and received the sacrament of the sick. He felt "a sensation of cold, then a soft heat" going through his body. "I then took my first steps, like a child that is learning to walk."

What is the civilised world to make of this story? Some people will be uncomfortable with the concept of miracles, believing either that a supernatural force does not exist, or does not intervene in our lives. According to this world view, all happenings, no matter how mysterious, can be explained by the laws of nature. No miracles.

When these strange occurrences are first reported, the church is the most suspicious of all. It was only after 10 years of medical investigations, and the judgment of a canonical commission, that Mr Bely's local bishop declared the "authentic character" of his cure.

Questions will still remain for some and they must be wrestled with, such as why this loving God allows suffering in the first place, or why only some of the afflicted are blessed with cures? There are no easy answers to these questions but in Lourdes, the phenomenon of inner peace is a reality almost more important than the physical cures which grab the attention of the world. Thousands have reported the joy and serenity they experienced. In 1858, Lourdes was a little-known country town in the French Pyrenees, home to only 4,135 people. Here Our Lady appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, a 14-year-old asthma sufferer, from a poor family.

Our Lady's message to Bernadette is now famous; it was a call to prayer and penance, to go drink and wash at the fountain, to tell the priests to construct a chapel near the grotto and for people to come there in procession. A century and a half later, Lourdes is now a major centre of pilgrimage with 17,000 inhabitants and more than 5 million visitors and pilgrims each year.

This year nearly, 2,000 pilgrims will join Archbishop Desmond Connell on the 50th anniversary pilgrimage of the Dublin diocese to Lourdes. This group includes 160 sick pilgrims from the diocese, as well as 500 volunteers - nurses, doctors, chaplains, brancardiers, handmaids, school groups, the Colleges' Volunteer Corps and the Dublin Lourdes Choir.

A special hymn to Mary has been composed to mark the 50th anniversary of the pilgrimage and other celebrations will take place in Dublin as well as Lourdes.

The participation of large numbers of young people, at their own expense, is a special feature of the Dublin pilgrimage. This year more young people wanted to join the pilgrimage as helpers than the organisers were able to accommodate. One priest of the diocese, Father John Kelly, found his own vocation to the priesthood through working as a brancardier in Lourdes while still a student.

Now master of ceremonies on the Dublin pilgrimage, Father Kelly believes that the care of the sick and the participation in a large pilgrimage helps the faith of young people. "Negative attitudes often pervade the youth culture at home where religion is concerned. Lourdes is a place for young people to express their faith in an atmosphere that's free from all that pressure," he says. Groups from Dublin and other parts of Ireland went to Lourdes almost immediately after the official declaration by the Lourdes ecclesiastical authority in 1862 that Our Lady had appeared to Bernadette.

The turn of the century saw a great increase in the number of Irish pilgrims. The Hierarchy organised a national pilgrimage in 1913, and a large pilgrimage drawn from the Garda Siochana attended in the 1920s.

Following the second World War, organised diocesan pilgrimages started going to Lourdes from Ireland. The Meath diocesan pilgrimage arrived in 1948, followed by Dublin in 1949.

The first Dublin diocesan pilgrimage left Dun Laoghaire on August 8th, 1949, on board the Princess Maude. There was a train stop in Crewe to pick up containers of boiling water for tea for the pilgrims. The whole journey took almost 48 hours by boat and train. In this, the year of God the Father, pilgrims will focus especially on the Sacrament of Reconciliation in preparation for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000.

Central to Lourdes are the sick who are accommodated in special residences of welcome known as the accueils. Most of the sick on Irish diocesan pilgrimages stay in the new Accueil Notre Dame which opened in 1997. Staff and voluntary helpers provide a place of welcome and peace for the sick pilgrim, almost in view of the grotto. Many of the volunteers are regulars who devote at least a week of their annual leave to caring for the sick in the baths, in the accueils and at the train station.

Apart from the 66 confirmed miracles at Lourdes, there are countless inner healings and blessings for many who go there.

Participation in the afternoon Eucharistic procession and blessing of the sick, and in the evening Marian torchlight procession, are special experiences, but pilgrims, and the sick in particular, always cherish quiet moments of prayer at the grotto, especially in the stillness of the evening. Here heaven and earth seem to meet in a very profound way.

Many carry this memory with them throughout their lives.

Father Pat Carroll is administrator of the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin. The Lourdes website is at www.lourdes-france.com