26th Sunday A
Relics of St. Bernadette
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
September 27 2026
More Than a Favorite Movie
One of my favorite movies is Song of Bernadette, a 1943 classic that movingly portrays the life of Bernadette Soubirous, She was a young girl from an impoverished family who, in 1858 encountered the Blessed Mother eighteen times at Lourdes. Those encounters not only changed her life, they changed Lourdes and they changed the world.
Much as I enjoy watching that movie, we have something better here. Once again, the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen is graced with the presence of St. Bernadette’s relics. These are not objects of curiosity or superstition, but tangible reminders that the saints shared our humanity, and that their bodies and ours are temples of the Holy Spirit. As we venerate their relics, our connection with the saints is deepened. In prayerful nearness to them, we seek to imitate their holiness and ask them to pray for our needs and the needs of others. Praying before St. Bernadette’s relics, the story of her life resonates. Indeed, she speaks to us through the Scriptures proclaimed in this Holy Mass.
God’s Way Is Not Our Way
The prophet Ezechiel reminded us that God’s way is not our way. Our way is to employ some form of strategic planning. To turn vision into reality, to accomplish our mission, we formulate goals, tactics, means, timelines, and costs. And there is something to be said for prudent planning. But there’s something strategic planning cannot teach us, and it’s this: God often accomplishes his purposes in ways we find implausible.
Had God told us beforehand he was going to change the world by sending the Blessed Mother to a poor girl of 14 in a remote village, well, we may have urged him to rethink his plan . . . . Had he told us that Mary would reveal herself to this girl as the Immaculate Conception and ask her to tell church authorities to build a chapel on the site of her apparitions – we would be incredulous; We’d ask how such a thing could possibly succeed!
Truly, God’s ways are not our ways. He often chooses those who are poor and lowly to be his ambassadors and witnesses in a jaded world. He makes them the bearers of messages of repentance and reform. Of course, his unlikely messengers meet with skepticism, jealousy, & ridicule. But in the process they become saints; they are crowned with life eternal.
How true this was of St. Bernadette. When she spoke of her visions and conveyed the Blessed Mother’s message, no one believed her; many dismissed her; some ridiculed her. Eventually, a local Abbot, Dominique Peyramale, did come to believe her. So did thousands of pilgrims who flocked to Lourdes, there to experience spiritual and physical healing. When Bernadette entered religious life, she encountered jealousy on the part of some of her sisters. Yet she persevered, following not her own way, but God’s ways.
Our “Yes” to God
The Gospel parable magnifies Ezekiel’s message and sheds further light on the example St. Bernadette set for us. The owner of a vineyard asked his two sons to work with him. The first son refused to help his father but later regretted it. To his credit, he showed up in the vineyard where he worked side by side with his father. The second son readily agreed to help his father but never showed up. He paid lip service to his father’s request, but that’s as far as it went.
God our Father invites every one of us to work in his vineyard. To be sure, saints like Bernadette are singled out for extraordinary roles, but in fact, God calls each of us to some special work, a work he has entrusted to each of us, and to no one else. How did Bernadette respond? And how do we respond?
When Bernadette first saw the vision of a beautiful Lady dressed in white, and holding a rosary in her hand – she must have blinked in disbelief. When she heard the Blessed Mother’s request, she must have been astonished. A lesser soul might have begged the Blessed Mother to stop appearing to her, or she may have begged the Blessed Mother to find another messenger . . . only to reconsider and later return, reluctantly agreeing with Mary’s request. Or, like the second son, she may have tried to appease the lady dressed in white by agreeing to what she asked but never returning to the grotto. But Bernadette did something else. She kept coming back. In spite of challenges, she said “yes” to the Blessed Mother, and in saying “yes” to Mary, she said her “yes” to God. Her consent caused upheaval and suffering in her life, but in God’s grace she persevered.
What a contrast to the fickleness of our “yes” to God. How often we make good resolutions we do not keep. How often we resolve to do some good work but in the face of discouragement or criticism, we give up. Bernadette teaches us how to say “yes” to God and mean it!
The Hidden Source
St. Bernadette did not say “yes” to God through sheer willpower, nor do we. Our ability to embrace God’s will is entirely anchored in Christ. As St. Paul proclaims in his Letter to the Philippians, Jesus – ‘though in the form of God, did not cling to equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and becoming obedient, even to death on a cross.’ This is how Jesus offered the ultimate, perfect “yes” to the Father.
It is precisely this saving “yes” of Christ that makes our own surrender possible. Just as Jesus’ obedience enabled Mary to give her assent to the angel – “Let it be done to me according to your word” – so too did his grace empower Bernadette to give her fearless assent to the Blessed Virgin at Lourdes.
As we venerate St. Bernadette’s relics today, we recognize that her strength was simply Christ living in her. Let us ask the Blessed Mother and St. Bernadette to teach us how to draw from that same divine wellspring, so that we might persevere in our own “yes” to God – remembering, as the immortal Dante put it, that “in his will is our peace.”
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us! St. Bernadette, pray for us.