St. Bernadette

Feast of St. Bernadette April 16, 2004

There was a child named Bernadette,
I hard the story long ago.
She saw the Queen of Heaven once,
And kept the vision in her soul.
No one believed what she had seen.
No one believed what she had heard.
That there were sorrows to be healed
And mercy, mercy in the world.

We’ve been around, we fall, we fly.
We mostly fall. We mostly run.
And every now and then we try
To mend the damage that we’ve done..
Tonight, tonight I cannot rest.
I’ve got this joy inside my breast.
To think that I do not forget,
That child---that song of Bernadette.

These words are from a song called “The Song of Bernadette” written by a man named Leonard Cohen, a Canadian Jew. Little Bernadette has had quite an influence on the world, even outside our Christian faith.

I’d like you to close your eyes for a moment and think about a twelve year old girl that you know, maybe your daughter or granddaughter; maybe a cousin or a neice; maybe the daughter of a friend. Imagine that she came to you and said that she had seen and spoken to the Virgin Mary. How would you react? Would you believe her? I’m not sure I would.
To make it even harder to believe, the grotto where Mary appeared at Lourdes is said to be a place where pigs would go to get out of the weather. It must have smelled pretty bad. Hardly a place where you would expect to find the Mother of God. But that’s what happened more than 100 years ago.

Why do you suppose that when Jesus wants to give us a message, he always does it through someone poor, someone with little or no credibility? Right from the start, He sent the angel to announce his birth to shepherds? Shepherds were the dregs of society. They weren’t even allowed to vote.

Why did He choose to have his mother appear to Juan Diego, a poor Mexican peasant? And why Bernadette? Even when Christ came Himself, He wasn’t what people expected. The Jews were looking for a king, a conquering hero to free them, not as carpenter.

We know that Mary would never question her Son, but you can almost imagine her saying, “Son, why can’t I appear to someone with some credibility; someone with influence? Wouldn’t people be more likely to hear the message if I visited someone important, like George Bush? Or someone with a lot of credibility, like Dan Rather? What if I went to see the Pope, or Billy Graham? Maybe I could be on Letterman or Oprah? Then people would really get the message.”

But, Christ’s message to us is a message of faith and hope. Faith and hope can’t exist if there’s certainty. If we know something is true, then we don’t need faith and hope.

On a personal level, when I was studying for the deaconate, I had a lot of doubts. One day I would be absolutely sure I was doing the right thing. The next day I was sure they were going to find out that I really had no business being there and that they were sure to kick me out of the program. In our final year, we went on a week long retreat. They call it a discernment retreat because you’re supposed to use the time to decide if you’re really being called to Holy Orders.

I went hoping that I would finally get the answer I had been looking for; some kind of sign. In one of our first breaks, I took out a book I had bought at the Book Fair for a dollar. It’s called “No Man is an Island” by Thomas Merton, the Trappist Monk. In the book, he writes about God’s love for us and our free will.

He says that God will give us indications of His will, but He will never reveal exactly what He wants us to do. If He did, we would have no free will because if we knew exactly what God wanted from us, we would have to do it. He wrote “He who loves us means by this to leave us room for our own freedom so that we may dare to choose for ourselves, with no other certainty than that His love will be pleased by our intention to please Him.”

Could it be that that’s why He sent Mary to appear to Bernadette? There’s no logical reason for us to take this little girl’s word. Believing in Bernadette’s vision requires faith on our part. And, of course we know, thousands of people have believed her. They make the long, difficult pilgrimage to Lourdes and many of them are healed of their illnesses.

So, on this feast day of little Bernadette, I’d like to think that there’s a lesson for us. Our little parish in the barracks is a lot like our namesake. We’re not big. We’re not rich. We’re not famous. We’re off the beaten path. But, in God’s plan, maybe that makes us the most likely instrument for sharing His message. We’ve gone through some difficult times. We’ve been touched more than once by the current crisis in the church.

But, we’re also an example of how the power of the Holy Spirit works through the people of God. Cardinal Rigali called us a vibrant parish. We have a solid community of people who come together to worship God, many of by choice, not because we happen to live within the parish boundaries. We have an active Fifty Plus Club and a wonderful youth group. Our Parish Nurse program is taking Christ to those in our parish who need Him the most.

We may not be a big parish, but we’re still here, still doing God’s will. God works in mysterious ways. He speaks through shepherds and Mexican peasants and little French girls and tiny parishes in Jefferson Barracks.

April 13, 2004 Tuesday of the Octave of Easter

Little Jimmy wasn’t feeling well so he stayed at home with a sitter while his family went to mass on Palm Sunday. When the family returned with their palms, Jimmy wanted to know what they were for. His mother said, “the people held them over Jesus’ head as he passed by.”

Little Jimmy scowled and said, “wouldn’t you know it. The one day I stay home, he shows up in person.”

[wait for laughter to die down]

It’s a cute story. But, how many of us have a view of Jesus that’s almost as simplistic as little Jimmy’s? As Catholics, we believe that He exists in the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist. For some people, that’s just too hard to believe. Unfortunately even some Catholics fall into that category. On the other hand, some people seem to think that He only exists in the Eucharist. Go to mass. Go to communion. You’re done. No need to even think about Him the rest of the time.

For some, He is present only in church. For some, apparently, He is present everywhere but church.

Many see Jesus as a man who lived 2000 years who has little relevance in the twenty-first century. They may think He was the Son of God, they may think he was only a prophet.

Some people are like Thomas. They don’t believe in anything that they can’t see and touch. But, proof doesn’t leave much room for faith, does it? It’s our faith that sets us apart as Christians.

Jesus said, “Whatever you do for the least of my children, you do for me.” To be true followers, we should try to see Him in the poor, the hungry, the homeless and in one another. I mentioned this a few weeks ago. When the minister says “the Body of Christ” there are two meanings. One is the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The other is that you who receive the communion, are part of the Body of Christ.

This year, many of us had the opportunity to see a very graphic depiction of Christ’s last hours, the Passion movie. It broke another record this weekend, taking in something like another $17 million. One criticism I’ve heard of the movie is that we shouldn’t have to see something so graphic to realize that Christ suffered terribly of our sins. There’s something to that. But I think I can safely say that anyone who saw the movie has a different vision of Christ than they had before.

For centuries, we have used paintings and statues to depict the life and death of Christ. The only thing that’s different in 2004 is the technology. I imagine that in 1498, when Michelangelo carved the Pieta from a block of marble, there were critics who said it wasn’t necessary to see Mary holding the body of her son.

The point is that Christ exists in the world today in many forms. You’d think it wouldn’t be so hard for so many people to see him. But then, even Mary Magdalene didn’t recognize him right away.