HCPT: Welsh region sets the theme of 'love'

The HCPT Easter Pilgrimage began in Lourdes yesterday. Groups around the country have prepared liturgies on the pilgrimage theme ' Cariad - God's love is the best love'. The leading region this year is Wales.

Cariad is an important word in Wales, it means love. HCPT Wales says: "During your week in Lourdes, may you receive God's love and share this with your HCPT family. At the end of the week take God's love home with you."

The leader of Chiswick Group 144, James Teague, is pictured here with a large wooden heart made up of jigsaw pieces of groups in the London Region. In Lourdes, each group will decorate their piece and they will be reassembled at a Regional Mass.

On Thursday the annual Trust Mass will take the same theme, involving around 1,000 disabled children, their helpers and chaplains. Leading the pilgrimage is Archbishop Leo Cushley, Archbishop of St Andrew's and Edinburgh, and President of HCPT, with eight other bishops from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the United States of America in attendance. The Mass will be broadcast live on the Lourdes live TV website.

HCPT (Hosanna House and Children's Pilgrimage Trust) was founded in 1956 by Dr Michael Strode. It has taken disabled and disadvantaged children to Lourdes ever since.

For more information see: www.hcpt.org.uk