In 2002, Marlene F. Watkins founded Our Lady of Lourdes Hospitality North American Volunteers, the first Lourdes Hospitality outside Europe and the first in the Americas.

Over twenty years, Marlene led more than 200 pilgrimages to Lourdes, hosting 8,000 pilgrims, many of whom faced severe illnesses or disabilities. These pilgrimages continue today with support from religious, medical, adult, university, and youth volunteers. The author also guided Lourdes Virtual Pilgrimage Experiences® across North America, Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa.

Marlene authored the bestselling and award-winning book, Everyday Miracles of Lourdes: Twenty Extraordinary Experiences Along the Way to the Grotto*, published in English, French, and Spanish, with future editions planned in German, Italian, Korean, and other languages.

The author also hosts the weekly EWTN series My Lourdes Faith Journey® and is a renowned international speaker. She appeared on CBS, EWTN, PBS, and BBC, and received the Our Sunday Visitor “Catholic of the Year” award.

Marlene is a wife, mother, grandmother, Secular Franciscan, and member of the Hospitalité Notre-Dame de Lourdes. She and her husband, Bill, divide their time between Syracuse, New York; Lourdes, France; and travelling across the U.S. in the LourdesMobile RV sharing the Gospel Message of Lourdes.

* All proceeds from this book support North American Lourdes Volunteers.

We are the first Lourdes Hospitality of the Americas and the first Hospitality outside Europe. We bring the seriously ill and disabled to Lourdes, France and serve the Sanctuary as volunteers. We evangelize through the Gospel Message of Lourdes sharing the grace of pilgrimage through Virtual Pilgrimage experiences to those unlikely or unable to make the physical journey to Europe.  We are volunteers, laity, clergy and religious, who lovingly serve the Immaculate Conception and her pilgrims both in the Sanctuary at France and back at home through living and sharing the Gospel Message of Lourdes. We are members of a Catholic Association united in prayer, evangelization and service within a charism of family centered in love reaching the sick and suffering, the poor and unloved.