Lourdes Sermon 2008

Normally on a Sunday we find ourselves at Church for Mass , or if we are sick waiting at home for the priest or Eucharistic minister to come. At Church we normally search out our place. We recognise people around about us, the surroundings are familiar to us, we wait for the priest to come out and begin the Mass. Today, everything is different we are celebrating our Sunday Mass not in our parish Church, not with the familiar surroundings of that building but today here at Lourdes we are celebrating this Sunday Mass in 150th anniversary year of the apparitions. Like the dream the Solomon had in the first reading, it seems like a dream for us to be here at Lourdes, a place that we’ve heard about since our earliest days, a place in which God has showed his mighty had and Mary her special protection. We are here at Lourdes, maybe some of us for the first time; maybe some of us who are sick or elderly, we maybe thought we would never make it; our young people who have prepared spiritually and worked hard to come here to spend time caring for the sick; ordinary pilgrims who have come, they also might have been deflected somewhere along the way. It seems like a dream, something that we have yearned for and now it has become a reality. In the Mass today, as in every Mass, we celebrate the presence of God with us and don’t we particularly feel God’s presence here with us in this place, his strong presence, his re-assuring presence, his presence which bring calm to our minds and hearts, his presence which can bring answers to our deepest questions.

In the first reading we hear that God came to King Solomon in a dream. It seems strange to us that God would come in a dream. But did he not come to Joseph in a dream, to tell him to take Mary to his home and then to flee Herod and take Mary and Joseph to Egypt. Did he not come to Moses in a burning bush? Did God not come to the prophet Elijah in the gentle breeze? Did not God come on earth at the tiny stable of Bethlehem. Can God not come in any way and in any place to us? Can he not show his mighty presence through the Blessed Virgin at a rocky grotto, beside a fast flowing cold river to a small sickly girl and can he not transform that place into a mighty place of healing? God can do mighty things and often from the smallest of things. Look around and see that he can do the most surprising things – even with loaves and fish was he not able to transform it into a great meal for thousands, and in the Mass under the species of bread and wine is he not able to feed our hunger for Him.

In King Solomon’s dream God asks him if he wants anything that he will grant him anything he desires. What a dream that must have been, most of us like the sound of that. Some times people will ask you is it right to pray that Celtic win on a Saturday. I usually say it is alright to pray for anything but be prepared for the answer because than answer isn’t always what you want to hear. Today in our hearts we have come with all sorts of prayers, Lourdes is a place where prayers are answered, through the strong and mighty intercession of the Virgin who has come to this place. Here we can hear God’s answer, here we can feel his presence, here we know that he cares for us. Here we know something big is happening, we feel that this is a dreamlike place in which God’s compassion is afoot, we feel the gentle breeze in which God is present, brushing our face, swirling around us, like a ship with sails we feel it fill our sails and gently drive us on.

It is interesting that in King Solomon’s dream, Solomon doesn’t ask for anything trivial, he asks for the thing that he most of all needs, wisdom to rule his people, to enable him to act wisely and justly. In our Mass today and in our pilgrimage does our heart not stretch out to this fact, not we want (short term pleasures) but rather what we most of all need. Strength to carry the cross in whatever form it comes to us. Light to make decisions when we are surrounded by darkness. Power to love in difficult circumstances. A desire to be faithful to God when it is so easy to take other roads. Does our heart not stretch out to ask God for what we most of all need to do his will on earth, to be connected to Him.

Coming to Lourdes is like finding a treasure, finding the peril of great price. Here the sick are cared for. Here people are filled with compassion and mercy. Here people love one another. Here people walk by the light of faith. Here people find great peace in the midst sometimes of the greatest travails and the most testing times of their lives. Here people find answers to questions. Here people find prayers answered in a way that they couldn’t imagine. It is a treasure that they find and carry away with them to their homes and their lives.

It seems to me that one of the great things about Lourdes is that everything is intensified and everything is magnified. We have faith but we seem to have more faith in Lourdes. We pray but we seem to pray harder at Lourdes. We love and yet at Lourdes we love more. We celebrate Mass and yet the experience of Mass and receiving Holy Communion seems deeper. The great miracle of Lourdes is in the more, in the deeper experience of what we already posses, the treasure that is already in our hands.

Our minds and hearts keeping coming back to those event in 1858 between the holy Mother of God and the young poor girl Bernadette. In God’s mighty plan he would make this place on earth a place of peace, faith,, prayer and healing. It seemed impossible, but God can do mighty things and has done might things

150 years later we find ourselves in this place among the many pilgrims. Do we not sense how privileged we are. For all of us is it not a dream come true. To be here is already a prayer answered, a hope realised. In a special way each os us sense that we are meant to be here, God wishes us to be here, that he has a reason for us being here, that he has something to say to us. Top Comment on this Homily