Given at Westminster Cathedral on 3rd September 2022, for the Service of Anointing of the Sick while the Relics of St Bernadette were visiting the Cathedral.
Our Blessed Lady spoke to St. Bernadette during the 13th apparition on 2nd March 1858 and said, ‘Go and tell the priests that people are to come here in procession and to build a chapel here’. Faithfully this command has been fulfilled. The pilgrimages and processions of people began, with those who were sick and in need, quickly at the heart and centre of Lourdes. It is the place where the people of the Beatitudes and the poor of the Magnificat find their home. It is wonderful to see so many of you who are sick gathering in such great numbers here today with faith and with love because you are at the heart of the message of St. Bernadette.
Today St. Bernadette comes to Westminster through her relics. We gather to be in her presence through this tangible memorial of her life on earth united with her life in heaven. The relics unite heaven and earth in a very real and personal way. We gather to venerate her and ask her prayer through Our Lady to Jesus Christ. It is as though St Bernadette is nudging Our Lady who is asking her Son for our needs. Our Blessed Lady gives her special love of compassion to you to strengthen you, to heal you and give you consolation.
How comforting it is to hear the consoling words of the gospel, ‘Come to me, all who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’ How encouraging these words were to St. Bernadette during her suffering on earth, whether the sickness and poverty of the child who came to the grotto, or the later suffering in the convent at Nevers. When she smeared her face with mud during the ninth apparition, this was a sign of being united with Jesus ‘a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering’. She shares in the cross of Jesus, the suffering servant. Our Lady has already told her that she does not promise to make her happy in this world but in the other.
The presence of these holy relics points us to her body as a living temple of the Holy Spirit bearing suffering and sickness through which she becomes holy. They point us to the triumph of Christ over suffering and death and the promise of the inheritance of eternal life. They are a sign of hope for each one of us as they unite the reality of being dust of the earth with the glory of sainthood in heaven. The suffering which St Bernadette carried can never be compared with the glory that awaited her in heaven.
Each day in Lourdes we celebrate the presence of Christ who walks with us and is the source of our joy. Today we meet Christ in the Sacrament of the Sick which we celebrate. The beautiful words of the Introduction to this Service, which are recited so often at the bedside of the sick person, whether at home or in the hospital, speak to us of Christ’s healing ministry. They remind us that, from the very early days of the Church, she continues this healing ministry calling the priests to come and pray over the sick persons, anoint them with holy oil, so that the prayer of faith will save the person, raise them up and forgive their sins.
The silent prayer of the laying on of hands calls down the Holy Spirit who comes to help us in our weakness. The Holy Spirit helps us pray as we open our hearts to his power. Suffering unites all of us in the great act of the groaning of creation wanting to be set free. Around us on earth, we hear the cries and see the tears of those who suffer. Yet this groaning, like the groaning of childbirth, brings forth the promise of new and eternal life in heaven with St. Bernadette and the saints.
The anointing with the sacred oil of the sick, full of the power of the Holy Spirit, the Consoler, brings forth healing in body, soul and spirit and delivers you from every affliction. It is like the mud on St. Bernadette’s face being washed away so that the beauty of her countenance shines forth and Christ shines out in her.
In faith, I invite each one of you to offer your prayers to Jesus through Our Blessed Lady and St. Bernadette so that all gathered here may know the joy and peace which is found in this holy place with St. Bernadette present and Christ at the centre.
Bishop John Sherrington
3rd September 2022