Bishop Mark’s homily in St Werburgh’s Chester // 14th September 2022
In our time of national mourning, we have witnessed the reverence and love with which the mortal remains of our departed Queen Elizabeth have been received on their last journey across this land. Her Majesty’s mortal remains are a tangible connection with our late Monarch, recalling the memory of her dedicated life and inviting prayer among the many who have stood along the roadways or passed before them. These scenes might help us appreciate how the Church from the beginning treated the bodies of the Saints with great reverence, as those who had lived united with Christ who left for us the memory of their witness and are now forever united with Christ in Heaven. And while we pray for our beloved Queen, as we pray for each other in the hour of death, the Church has always invited us to ask the Saints in Heaven to pray for us. And so it is, with the pilgrimage of the relics of Saint Bernadette across our country, they provide for us a tangible connection with the heroic life of this young woman; and as we venerate them with reverence, we are invited to ask her prayers in Heaven as we continue our journey on earth.
Saint Bernadette comes to us as a witness to the Eucharist. In days when not a few have lost sight of the Sacrifice and Sacrament which is source and summit of our life, containing the Church’s entire spiritual wealth: Christ Himself.i We recall that the 14-year-old Bernadette returned to Lourdes in the winter of 1858, with one purpose: to receive the Eucharist for the first time in her life. Bernadette left behind the relative comfort of the village of Batres, where she had been sent to recover her health, in exchange for the harshness of life in an abandoned and overcrowded prison cell. This seemed to Bernadette, a small sacrifice for the opportunity to receive Jesus Christ her Lord in Holy Communion. And we can understand the subsequent encounters of prayer with the Holy Mother of God, as forming the preparation of this generous soul for the day when she would finally receive the Holy Eucharist.
Lourdes is a place of prayer and faith, of conversion and healing, a place for the sick and the poor, a place of youth and service and it is all these things because it is above all a place of the Eucharist. Bernadette would bring message that seemed a curious request from the Lady she encountered, that a chapel be built. The formidable Parish Priest of Lourdes was so concerned by the crowds gathering at the Grotto of Massabiele, that he gave Bernadette a severe and angry reception when she knocked at his door, to such an extent her accompanying aunts fled! Bernadette was left alone and found that in the ferocity of her reception, she had forgotten an essential part of the message she had been sent to bring. It is one of the marks of the authenticity of her witness, that she was ready to turn around and to knock on the door again to tell her exasperated pastor that he was also being asked to build another church! The significance lay not in the pastoral needs of the population of Lourdes, adequately served by their Parish Church, rather in the central place which the Mystery of the Eucharist was to hold in the pilgrimage of Lourdes.
Last night, I reflected in the Cathedral that the events of Lourdes and witness of Bernadette are part of what the Church calls ‘private revelations.’ A message, a vision, an insight which adds nothing to the Gospel or the faith, rather it echoes and recalls us at a specific moment in time to something we might be in danger of forgetting. The message of Lourdes speaks of the value and dignity of the little ones of the earth; of the greatness of our call to holiness; of our need of prayer, of penance and conversion but, above all, the events at Lourdes and the enduring witness of Bernadette always lead us to the Eucharist.
As we gather at Mass in the centre of this ancient city – where the relics of Saint Werburgh once awakened in the hearts of our ancestors a longing for conversion and true holiness – the pilgrimage of Saint Bernadette’s relics leads us to the very Source of Grace, Heaven on earth, the Mystery of the Eucharist. In the simple and memorable words of Saint John Paul II: “In the Eucharist we have Jesus, we have his redemptive sacrifice, we have his resurrection, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit, we have adoration, obedience and love of the Father. Were we to disregard the Eucharist, how could we overcome our own deficiency?”.ii How can we hope to overcome our deficiencies, reach the goal of holiness which is the same thing as happiness, without the grace and gift of the Eucharist?
In our parishes we have known the upheaval of a pandemic and two years of lockdowns and restrictions and anxieties unknown for a century and more. These disruptive and unexpected events brought a challenge to us all to return to the Eucharist with joy. Yet, we are conscious of those still to return and many more of our contemporaries who are still to discover this greatest Gift, the miracle of love which is the Eucharist. By our frequent reception of Holy Communion, the Church teaches, our union with Christ is strengthened; our spiritual life abundantly sustained; we find the remedy to our weakness and defects; the antidote to daily faults and preservation from mortal sin; our souls are endowed with every virtue and the pledge of everlasting happiness is more securely given us. In the silence of the Eucharist, Saint John Vianney reflected, we find the greatest happiness we will ever find on earth.
The relics of Saint Bernadette are a tangible link with one who so lived united with Christ on earth and is forever united with Him in Heaven, bringing us the same message entrusted to her if not to build a church, then to each make a place for the Eucharist at the heart and centre of our lives. We are invited to walk with Bernadette – no matter what sacrifices may be involved – to put the Holy Eucharist first in our lives and so literally first in our week each Sunday. To be prepared with Our Lady’s help to receive Him anew with faith and love, with attentiveness and amazement. For this renewal of our Diocese – the only authentic renewal of the Church’s life – may Saint Bernadette pray for us!
i Cf. Presbyterorum Ordinis no. 5
ii Ecclesia de Ecclesia No. 60