Girls from the Children’s Rosary pictured under Lourdes Grotto replica in the Oblates Church of Mary Immaculate, Inchicore, Dublin. Photo: Rebecca Roughneen The veneration of St Bernadette’s relics in Ireland has seen thousands of the faithful gather, moved by the life of the young saint who once saw the Virgin Mary in Lourdes. This week with stops in Christ the King Cathedral in Mullingar, Oblate Church of Mary Immaculate in Inchicore, Dublin, Adam and Eve’s, Dublin, Kilmore and Cork and Ross.
Approximately 4000 people descended to the Oblates Church of Mary Immaculate, Inchicore, Dublin, and thousands of faithful venerated St Bernadette’s relics in the Cathedral of Christ the King, Mullingar.
In his homily for Mass with Anointing of the Sick during the visit of the Relics of St Bernadette in Mullingars Cathedral, Bishop Tom Deenihan of Meath encouraged the faithful to believe beyond miracles.
If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, he must take up his Cross and follow me.’ Faith, he said, ‘promises no primrose path’”
“We look for miracles, signs, anything, any heavenly thread to grab onto,” he said, acknowledging the desire for proof. “We don’t always get it, or at least in any dramatic fashion.” Bishop Deenihan noted that true faith is founded on a quiet, persistent belief. He observed that even those closest to God’s mystery often struggled. The apostles saw miracles, yet most met violent deaths. And Peter, the rock of the Church, denied Christ. The bishop reminded his listeners of Christ’s words, “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, he must take up his Cross and follow me.” Faith, he said, “promises no primrose path.”
Bishop Deenihan’s explained that, though St Berndate received powerful visions, they did not free her from difficulties. Her life was marked by rejection and suffering. “Would Bernadette have been better off if Mary had not appeared to her at all?” the bishop asked.
The bishop described Our Lady as a “courageous young lady who surrendered herself to the will of God. ‘Be it done unto me according to thy word.’ Was not that the supreme act of faith?” Bishop Deenihan invited his audience to consider what it means to surrender entirely.
The bishop reminded the faithful that Faith is not a “magic wand” to erase life’s struggles but a source of resilience that sustains through them. Through “the intercession of Mary and Bernadette,” he prayed, “may we all have the faith to see the hand of God at work in our lives, even when it works silently and undramatically.”
