St Bernadette's Parish Church

In this church, in 1844, where she was baptized two days after she was born, St Bernadette began her life in simple witness to Jesus Christ. Today we celebrated mass together, with Archbishop Cordileone as the celebrant. In prayer we are reminded that Bernadette was not a saint because she had a miraculous vision of the Blessed Mother, but rather that she lived her life as a witness to Jesus Christ, as a witness to God’s promise of salvation. We too are called to bear that witness and to that same life of holiness. Msgr. Otellini, in his homily, remarked that in typing the world Malade into our computers, the spell checker directs you to the word “malady”. He reminds us that here in Lourdes we turn maladies, conditions we speak of, into Malades, people of great value whom we love. It is certainly not only here in Lourdes that we are all called to this ministry, but wherever and whenever we see Christ in disguise in the sick, the poor and lonely.