It is a joy to come with you as pilgrims to our National Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in Carfin. This Pilgrimage has been an important part of our diocesan calendar for a number of years and I think we can now call it part of the tradition and culture of our diocese. When it became less practical for us to go to Lourdes each year we immediately felt something precious had been lost from our diocesan life, our devotion to Our Lady and the care of our sick. We treasured our diocesan pilgrimage to Our Lady of Lourdes and this blessed opportunity to honour Our Blessed Mother and to ask Her to take up into Her mother’s arms the care of our sick and suffering brothers and sisters. Something deeper inside of us demanded to come to pray to Her and to thank Her for looking after us in the year that had past and to walk in procession to Her as She had asked from the Grotto. Something as deep in us needed a time and a place to bring to Her our suffering brethren and commend them to Her gentle but powerful maternal care. Our Lady Herself gave us the answer. She inspired us to come to Carfin with Her motherly assurance that She would be as gracious to us here as She always was and is in Lourdes. And so we have got used to coming here at Her invitation to be with Her at this most precious national shrine, Her home from home in Scotland. Today, again, we bring to Her our sick and suffering asking Her to intercede with Her Son to anoint these our needy brethren with His precious hands that cannot touch poor souls without strengthening, purifying and healing them. We come to Carfin aware, of course, of its glorious history as a place of pilgrimage with its intimate connection with Lourdes. In July 1920 faithful from this parish, having taken part in the Scottish National Pilgrimage to Lourdes, were so moved by the experience that, upon their return, they wanted to erected a small shrine across from the old parish Church as a continual and lasting memorial of the grace of Lourdes. As the first sod was cut and the site was blessed, medals of Our Lady of Lourdes were buried in the ground and the service concluded with the singing of the ‘Lourdes Hymn’. The next day volunteers set to work: miners, railwaymen, and others who were soon joined by volunteers from neighbouring parishes. Statues of Our Lady of Lourdes and Saint Bernadette were bought and a piece of rock brought back to Scotland from the niche where the Mother of God appeared at Lourdes was set into the stone of the Carfin grotto. Over two thousand pilgrims watched Father Taylor consecrate the Scottish Lourdes Grotto and thus began a long history of devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes on our own soil that brings us to our own pilgrimage today. Looking back nearly one hundred years ago we can see how these, our forefathers and mothers in the Scottish Catholic Church, were stepping out in faith when, returning from Lourdes, they wanted to build a shrine to Our Lady on Scottish soil. As they cut that first sod of ground, planted their holy medals and sacrificed their last pennies to buy a statue of Our Lady, not caring that they were leaving themselves little or nothing to live on, all that mattered was that they might find a place for the Mother of God and their Mother in their homeland. She would ensure they would not perish in the difficult times for living between the two world wars. In Lourdes they found Her to be the Mother of a God Who keeps His promises, even if He sometimes seemed to delay, and they returned home renewed in their hope that, no matter what else befall them, the God Who made promises to them through Our Lady of Lourdes would be faithful to them. Over a century later we gather to commend their faith as the Scriptures commended the pioneering faith of Abraham and Sarah of olden times. Surely like Abraham they set out on this project not knowing quite where they were going and certainly not what it would lead to in terms of its rich inheritance of graces and blessings for their descendants. Yet because of their efforts there came from these few good souls, who were almost dead in poverty and unemployment, more blessings than could be counted, more than the stars in the sky or sands on the shore. They died and went to their rest without seeing this great river of faith they had opened up during their own sojourn in this world but they see it now and welcome it from the short distance of Heaven. As they reach their homeland there God continues to build this Blessed Citadel of theirs on Scottish soil, proud to be the God of His Scottish faithful. We have had a great deal given to us in trust by those of the generations that have gone before us and a great deal will be demanded of us in our own times so it is good that the Lord finds us still here, one hundred years on, employed in the same faith of our fathers, under the protection of Our Blessed Mother, in order for the same God of Heaven and earth to place safely into our care and our own times all that He owns. We come here as their sons and daughters and heirs of this faith of our fathers living still in Carfin and at a time of renewal in our diocesan devotion to Our Lady. We know that, in Her ‘Yes’ to the Angel Gabriel, God kept His promises to His people to save them from their sins and all that threatened them and how He far exceeded all their expectations in sending His Only Beloved Son, Jesus, as their Redeemer. Our Mother Mary is the Blessed One who believed that the promises made to Her and Her people by the Lord would be fulfilled and it is Our Lady who assures us today that Our Heavenly Father is pleased to give us His Kingdom again. Once more Our Mother Mary is our diocesan treasure and the One to whom we give our whole hearts and in Whom we place all our hopes to bring us many mercies from Her Beloved Son. Today we come dressed as pilgrims with our pilgrim lamps lit and our hearts wide open to the merciful knocking of the Son of Mary, ready to wait, with whatever patience it takes, for Our Father to tend to our prayers. And we come as the devout children of worthy forefathers, offering the sacrifice of our lives, joys and hopes, sicknesses and sufferings in one accord, happy to share our worries and blessings together, sure that the God of all hope will bless us all. Today’s Old Testament reading ends with the exhortation: Without further delay let us begin to chant the hymns of our fathers. Remembering our own forefathers and mothers in the faith, remembering our sick and suffering brethren in our midst, remembering the great mercies of God poured out on our diocese over many years through the hands of Our Lady of Lourdes and mindful of the challenge to be worthy of the great inheritance that has been entrusted into our care in these times by our Heavenly Father, let us also be brave and full of hope and, in honour of Our Blessed Mother, without further delay begin to chant anew the hymns of our fathers.

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