Dear Brothers and Sisters in Jesus Christ,
In September and October this year, the relics of St Bernadette will undertake a very special pilgrimage, journeying from Lourdes in France to cathedrals and churches across England, Scotland, and Wales.
For many of us, the opportunity to enrich our faith through the experience of pilgrimage has been difficult or impossible over the last two years, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The pilgrimage St Bernadette’s relics will undertake this autumn offers us a welcome opportunity to bear active witness to our Faith, joining with one another across our many communities to encounter God’s love and find spiritual, emotional, and psychological healing and renewal.
As we welcome the relics of St Bernadette to the United Kingdom we are also reminded of the special significance of Lourdes as a place of pilgrimage and of love, where people of all ages serve and care for the sick and the most vulnerable in our society.
I would encourage those people who are able to, to consider continuing the journey begun by the relics of St Bernadette this autumn, joining with people from their parishes and dioceses to travel on pilgrimage to Lourdes in the weeks and months ahead.
We thank God for the faith of St Bernadette and for the many gifts and graces the relic tour will bring.
Yours devotedly,
✠Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster
