Pope Benedict XVI greets faithful at the end of a candle procession for the Virgin Mary on Saturday at the Lourdes shrine, southwestern France.The pontiff celebrated the 150th anniversary of apparitions of the Virgin Mary to local 14-year-old girl, Bernadette Soubirous. The shrine draws 6 million people annually, some of them disabled or desperately sick, many of them hoping for a miracle.

Lourdes, France ? As millions of pilgrims do each year, Pope Benedict XVI drank water Saturday from the Lourdes spring famed for miraculous cures as he visited a grotto at the sanctuary he calls a “citadel of hope.”

A young girl in 19th century peasant costume handed the pontiff a glass of the water from the spring that burst through the ground 150 years ago when a local girl, Bernadette Soubirous, had repeated visions of the Virgin Mary.

The grotto sheltered Benedict from a steady rain but didn’t keep out the evening chill as the pontiff, in a red mantle over white robes, prayed and lit a candle.

Benedict flew to Lourdes, a town in southwest France near the Pyrenees, after saying an outdoor Mass in Paris attended by more than a quarter million Roman Catholics – a show of faith in a traditionally Roman Catholic country that has witnessed a sharp decline in churchgoing in recent years.

In his homily in Paris, Benedict focused on the ills of modern materialism, condemning the unbridled passion for power, possessions and money.

“Has not our modern world created its own idols?” Benedict said, wondering aloud whether people have “imitated, perhaps inadvertently, the pagans of antiquity?”

The main purpose of Benedict’s first visit to France as pontiff was the pilgrimage in Lourdes as the shrine marked the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to 14-year-old Bernadette, who later was made a saint.

Riding through Lourdes in his popemobile, the pontiff smiled and waved to cheering crowds of pilgrims wearing windbreakers. In drizzle and chilly wind, the 81-year-old pope walked the final stretch to the grotto.

More than 5 million people visit Lourdes every year – some brought to the spring in wheelchairs and stretchers – in hopes that drinking and bathing in the water will heal their ailments. The church has officially recognized 67 miracle cures linked to Lourdes over the years.