Lourdes Limerick Diocesan Pilgrimage

Mass at the Grotto, 23 June 2023

We are in a sacred place here. 18 times Our Lady appeared to St. Bernadette at this Grotto. Bernadette described her experience simply as: “I saw a little lady, about the same height as me, looking at me and smiling.” Having had a number of conversations with Bernadette, on the 13^th apparition, Our Lady, Mary said to her: “go and tell the priests that people must come here in procession and that a chapel be built there.”  Years later Bernadette would say: “I felt drawn towards the Lady, I don't know how or why; I cannot express the feelings that moved me at that moment”. And after she become a nun, Bernadette said, “Every day, I go in spirit to the Grotto and I make my pilgrimage there”.

Here we are today making our pilgrimage. Most of us haven’t been here since 2019 because of Covid but now we’re back and Limerick has managed to pick up a few more All-Irelands along the way! We’re at the famous Grotto and we too are drawn towards Our Lady of Lourdes. And in their hearts there are many people back home in our Diocese of Limerick who are with us spiritually making their pilgrimage here. I’m sure people said to you, “say a prayer for me in Lourdes” and you yourself are thinking of people who need prayers. You are now one of the great procession of millions and millions of people who have come here for the past centuries to spend time with Our Lady and with Bernadette. Our Lady is smiling on us here today too, smiling on you, looking at you as a mother, hearing your petition and bringing it to God.

What would Our Lady like to say to us today? What would Bernadette like to say to us? I want to suggest three things:

Thanks for coming here in procession. Welcome! As well as handing over your prayer petitions to us, why not focus on living in the now, in the present moment. People come to Lourdes with hopes and worries, dreams, petitions and fears. Today let’s decide to hand over any worries or burdens, memories or sins from the past hand to God’s mercy. And likewise, let’s entrust any dreams, hopes or fears we have for the future, to God’s love for us, knowing that he’ll look after us. In doing this we can focus on living in the now, loving and serving those with us ere on pilgrimage. In the now, Lourdes is a place where we can experience the miracles of healing and peace. Jane Kristen Marczewski, an American singer songwriter known professionally as Nightbirde, shot to fame on America’s Got Talent in 2021 with her song entitled “It’s OK”. Sadly, she was suffering from cancer and died in February 2022. In a last message released just hours before she died she said: I’ve always expected miracles. I thought the miracle would be that I could skip to the end, spared of pain. I thought the miracle would make me scar-free, brand new. I did get a miracle—just not the one I wanted. I get to look for light and find it. I get to see how much love can endure. I get to walk the journey with thousands of people like me, who can’t stop hoping, no matter how hard we try. If we only take the miracles that taste sweet, I don’t think we’ll ever taste one. If we wait until we have the perfect song, I don’t think we’ll ever sing. Don’t miss it—it’s now. We are in the miracle; we are in the dream.

A second thing I would like to suggest that Mary and Bernadette would say to us is: be open to what God might saying to you in your heart in these days. Think of Bernadette. Her story is remarkable. I remember going to see a film about her the first time I came to Lourdes way back fifty years in 1973. I think the film was in French; I didn’t understand much but the images of the story meant you could pick up the gist of it and it made an impression. The young Bernadette was frail in health (she contracted cholera and suffered from asthma and other ailments), she was the eldest of nine children from a really poverty-stricken family. Her could hardly read or write or speak French. Yet, she was open to God and discovered her direction in life. And that involving listening to the Holy Spirit’s voice speaking inside her and following it even if it cost her to do so. When people were criticising and doubting Bernadette about the apparitions, her mother said: “She is not a liar. I believe her incapable of deceiving us. I had forbidden her to go to the Grotto. She went anyway, yet she's not usually disobedient”.

Yes, Bernadette was not usually disobedient but when it came to the Truth, she had to follow the Holy Spirit and do the right thing even if it meant going against the current. In her case, that meant she kept coming to this Grotto. As our reading puts it today at Mass: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”. Eventually, listening to the Holy Spirit, Bernadette found her vocation and became a nun in Nevers, a city far from here. Each of us has to discover day by day what God wants from us. There are normally so many noises around us. They can easily drown out the small whispering voice of Truth in our heart. At Lourdes we get a chance in the lovely atmosphere here to listen out for those words, those signs, those hints that God will be giving us throughout these days. So many people have found new direction in life, a vocation, a sense of what matters in life in this place. So, yes, Mary and Bernadette would surely say to us today: be open to what God might saying to you in your heart in these days.

The third thing I want to suggest that Our Lady and Bernadette would say to us today is: our wish is that your visit here to Lourdes will help you when you go home to be a person who makes a difference in the world around you. Our reading todays speak of us “building a house”. When anyone builds a house they have to make sure the foundations are right so that it won’t fall. The great foundation for building a better world is to be found in the words of the Gospel that speak of love – love your neighbour as yourself; love one another; be the first to love. After Bernadette met Our Lady here in Lourdes, this town became a place of a whole range of hospitality services, welcoming the sick, the dying, the worried, those lacking peace. In that way what one of the Popes of the past (Pius XII) said about Lourdes became true: people experienced “a new and incomparable outpouring of redemption”.

Perhaps redemption is not something we think of too much. It is a central theme in religions and in Christianity. Indeed there are many contemporary songs that convey the message of redemption. For instance, a song called Rise by English composer Gabrielle says: “Look at my life / Look at my heart / I have seen them fall apart / Now I’m ready to rise again” . Redemption is turning things turning around, rising again, overcoming adversity, getting our lives back on track, doing good deeds to outweigh any bad or evil in the past.

In a world today that is at war – so many wars going on around the world –, we need to build a house, the house of our own personal lives, but also the house of our society, our world.  Lourdes reminds us to look around us and see the sick being cared for here in Lourdes, and realise that we’ve to do our part to bring about “a new and incomparable outpouring of redemption” in our world. In another song that’s popular today called “Life me up” by Rihanna, we hear the great plea that so many feel in their hearts: “life me up, hold me, hold me, keep me safe, we need light, we need love”.

Yes, the great invitation here at this Grotto at Lourdes: Thanks for coming, welcome, be open and have such a great pilgrimage that when you go home you will be someone who makes more of a difference in the world around you, and so continuing Our Lady and Bernadette’s welcome here to you in this sacred place.  You will be Our Lady’s smile of love, reflecting God’s love for each person you meet.