Relics of St. Bernadette venerated in Metuchen cathedral
June 1, 2022 at 2:08 a.m.
Organized in partnership with the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the North American Volunteers, Hospitalité of Miami and the Order of Malta, the U.S. tour of St. Bernadette’s relics will span from April to August of this year, making numerous stops nationwide. The visit to the Metuchen Cathedral, another to St. Peter’s University Hospital, New Brunswick, and one in Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Milltown, were the reliquary’s only stops in New Jersey.
Throughout the day, schoolchildren and adults visited the relics during daily Mass, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, the praying of the Rosary and films of a virtual pilgrimage experience. Metuchen Diocese Bishop James F. Checchio was principal celebrant of an evening liturgy which drew hundreds to venerate the relics. Father Timothy Christy, Cathedral rector, delivered the homily in which he said the Blessed Mother was entrusted to be the Mother of the Church as she and the disciple John stood at the foot of Jesus’ Cross.
"A good mother never wants her children to go astray. She wants the best for them,” Father Christy said. “She shows up so we don’t lose our way. And so it was in the 1850s in a little village in southern France, Our Lady approached the little girl Bernadette, uncatechized but with a love for God. Our Lady spoke to her, entrusted to her nothing new, but to refresh the Church.”
Bernadette Soubirous was born to a poor family in Lourdes, a small village in the south of France, in 1844. In 1858, a series of 18 apparitions of a beautiful lady calling herself the “Immaculate Conception” appeared to her in a grotto, requesting she drink of the water that flowed there and wash in it. Church officials and the French government vigorously interviewed the girl, and by 1862 confirmed she spoke the truth.
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Following the construction of a chapel at the site, and numerous miracles of healing for those who bathed in the spring, Bernadette withdrew from public life and joined the Sisters of Charity in Nevers. She died at the age of 35 in 1879. In 1925, her incorrupt body was exhumed so that first-class relics could be retrieved. She was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1933; her feast day is April 16.
Father Christy continued, “This little girl was visited by the Mother of God in a little backward town called Lourdes. God’s mysterious plan is that He picks someone that no one else thinks about, chooses unsuspecting people to do great things. If you ever have woken up and said to yourself, ‘I’m a nobody. What can I do,’ you are exactly the candidate God wants to do something extraordinary… It is no accident you are here tonight: Our Lady wants to touch your heart.”
Bishop Checchio concluded the liturgy with a re-enactment of a Lourdes pilgrimage procession. Candlelight illuminated the clerical procession throughout the dimmed Cathedral as penitents sang fervently the hymn “Immaculate Mary.”
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Organized in partnership with the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the North American Volunteers, Hospitalité of Miami and the Order of Malta, the U.S. tour of St. Bernadette’s relics will span from April to August of this year, making numerous stops nationwide. The visit to the Metuchen Cathedral, another to St. Peter’s University Hospital, New Brunswick, and one in Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Milltown, were the reliquary’s only stops in New Jersey.
Throughout the day, schoolchildren and adults visited the relics during daily Mass, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, the praying of the Rosary and films of a virtual pilgrimage experience. Metuchen Diocese Bishop James F. Checchio was principal celebrant of an evening liturgy which drew hundreds to venerate the relics. Father Timothy Christy, Cathedral rector, delivered the homily in which he said the Blessed Mother was entrusted to be the Mother of the Church as she and the disciple John stood at the foot of Jesus’ Cross.
"A good mother never wants her children to go astray. She wants the best for them,” Father Christy said. “She shows up so we don’t lose our way. And so it was in the 1850s in a little village in southern France, Our Lady approached the little girl Bernadette, uncatechized but with a love for God. Our Lady spoke to her, entrusted to her nothing new, but to refresh the Church.”
Bernadette Soubirous was born to a poor family in Lourdes, a small village in the south of France, in 1844. In 1858, a series of 18 apparitions of a beautiful lady calling herself the “Immaculate Conception” appeared to her in a grotto, requesting she drink of the water that flowed there and wash in it. Church officials and the French government vigorously interviewed the girl, and by 1862 confirmed she spoke the truth.
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Following the construction of a chapel at the site, and numerous miracles of healing for those who bathed in the spring, Bernadette withdrew from public life and joined the Sisters of Charity in Nevers. She died at the age of 35 in 1879. In 1925, her incorrupt body was exhumed so that first-class relics could be retrieved. She was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1933; her feast day is April 16.
Father Christy continued, “This little girl was visited by the Mother of God in a little backward town called Lourdes. God’s mysterious plan is that He picks someone that no one else thinks about, chooses unsuspecting people to do great things. If you ever have woken up and said to yourself, ‘I’m a nobody. What can I do,’ you are exactly the candidate God wants to do something extraordinary… It is no accident you are here tonight: Our Lady wants to touch your heart.”
Bishop Checchio concluded the liturgy with a re-enactment of a Lourdes pilgrimage procession. Candlelight illuminated the clerical procession throughout the dimmed Cathedral as penitents sang fervently the hymn “Immaculate Mary.”