WELCOME FROM BISHOP PETER COLLINS
Tell the priests to build a chapel….
As I look around Lourdes, I can see that the message of St. Bernadette to ‘the priests’ has indeed been fruitful, many chapels have been built from the smallest of prayer rooms to the vast expanse of the St. Pius X ‘Underground Basilica’. I wonder, though, if that is really what Our Blessed Lady’s message through Bernadette was all about? ‘Building the/a church has always meant far more than assembling bricks and mortar or steel and concrete, architects’ drawings and planning permissions.
The challenge of walking Synodal Pathway has taught us that the true process of building within the Church has been of relationships and people, the ‘living stones’ that make up the People of God. A Lourdes Pilgrimage is the ideal moment to help us to think and pray ‘outside the box’ of our own buildings and parish-limited structures, both as Diocesan Families and School Communities; to relate between ourselves first and foremost as God’s people, friends of Jesus and loving children in heart and mind of his mother Mary. As we reflect on what this command ‘to build a chapel’ might have meant in 1858, we know now, 165 years later, that it means far more, than bricks and mortar. It means building up spirit-filled friendships and a vision for a church of the future already given full planning permission by the message of Our Blessed Lady entrusted to St. Bernadette, and through that amazing young woman to us.
I wish you all a happy and holy pilgrimage, and I am sure that each of you will have something different that you can tell me about the spiritual architecture of Lourdes as you have experienced it that will help me to understand the vision of the Immaculate Virgin Mary granted to St. Bernadette, and then respond in my own way to her command to ‘build the church’. I look forward to meeting you and spending time among you, sharing the graces Our Blessed Lady is sure to bestow.
With my blessing for you all, and for those who have enabled you to be here.
Bishop Peter Collins, Bishop of East Anglia

Every day we will be bringing you videos, Homilies and many pictures from the Pilgrimage. Please check back here each day to follow the Pilgrimage.