Limerick Diocesan Lourdes Pilgrimage, June 20, 2026

Limerick Diocesan Lourdes Pilgrimage, June 20, 2026#

Côté Carmel, Lourdes

Homily Notes of Bishop Brendan Leahy

It’s no news to say we are living in a time of changes, big changes, indeed, not just of changes, but a change of era, as Pope Francis used to say. For his part, Pope Leo who has written a wonderful encyclical on Artificial Intelligence invites us to look to Mary, the Mother of Christ to guide our steps through this time of change.

Mary knows all about change. The world’s history changed completely the day she said “yes” to the Angel at the Annunciation. She was to become the mother of Jesus, the mother of God. She was to be the one through whom the greatest revolution in history would take place. She brought Jesus into the world with his Kingdom of peace and love, justice and truth.

This year’s pilgrimage to Lourdes wants us to focus on the Angel’s words to Mary: “Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you” and Mary’s reply “yes” to the message that she would become the mother of Jesus. In our own little way, each of us can repeat Mary’s “yes” in this change of era that we are experiencing with all its triumphs and failures, light and darkness.

That “yes” to God that we say in imitation of Mary’s is something that must become concrete as it was for Mary and as it was for St. Bernadette here in Lourdes. We know that when Our Lady invited Bernadette, “Would you do me the honour of coming here for fifteen days,” she said “yes” and that became a solid commitment. Despite pressures and ridicule from people, Bernadette returned to the Grotto, day after day. She even did the “illogical actions” that she was asked by Our Lady to do such as digging in the earth and drinking muddy water.

I would like to propose three ways we can imitate Mary in saying our “yes” to God and live it out in a way that is concrete in this era of change. They are three ways that Lourdes teaches us.

First, with the same faith that Mary embodied, we can become “weavers of hope” for the people around us. Mary is the woman who, in the words of St. Paul, “believed all things, endured all things, hoped all things”. Like Mary, we can keep hope alive. There is so much talk today about influencers, but the truth is that each one of us can be an influencer for good. We don’t need thousands of followers on social media. We influence others simply through the hope we weave into our everyday relationships. Everyone experiences ups and downs. All of us face limits—an illness, the loss of someone dear, the end of a relationship, moments of weakness or failure, or burdens that feel too heavy to carry. At those key moments, we can become a source of strength for one another, helping each other notice the light that still shines. It is often—mysteriously—in the very moments of darkness that we discover a deeper relationship with God, a richer compassion, and a more tender empathy for others. By standing with one another in those moments, we become true weavers of hope. And that’s what we see lived out in thousands of ways here in Lourdes in the care given, the stories shared, the good fun created, the listening ear offered.

A second way to imitate Mary flows naturally from just what I have been saying about being weavers of hope: we weave hope by spreading love. Saint Bernadette used to say that “Love is enough.” Pope Leo reminds us that we are called to become builders of a civilization of love. In a book called The Art of Loving, the American writer Erich Fromm observed that although we deeply crave love, we often treat everything else as more important—success, prestige, money, power. We pour our energy into achieving these goals and almost none into learning the art of loving. Of course, doing well in life matters. But above all, what matters is learning the Gospel’s Art of Loving, the way Jesus teaches.

This is urgently needed today. As Pope Leo puts it, we must learn to disarm our hearts of hatred and our language of violence and aggression. Our world needs an antidote to hostility and venom. Living the Gospel Art of Loving is precisely such an antidote. Again, it’s what we witness here in Lourdes. In many ways it is a city of mutual love, love for one another, a love that brings joy, energy, peace.

That love for one another starts always with the little gestures of love. I was struck recently by a simple story a priest shared. He served in a seaside parish in America. Behind the presbytery was a garden wall overlooking the sea. One evening, while walking in the garden, he glanced over the wall and noticed a woman sitting alone, staring out at the water. He simply greeted her: “Good evening.” The next day she came to the house to say that his small gesture had saved her life. She had been contemplating ending it. That brief moment of kindness opened a path to healing. She stayed in touch with the priest, later met her husband, married, and built a beautiful family—whose children the priest eventually baptised.

A third point—one that Pope Leo emphasises in his letter on Artificial Intelligence—is essential for anyone who seeks to be a weaver of hope and a builder of the civilisation of love. Mary teaches us to direct our gaze toward “the points at which humanity is broken and the world becomes distorted.” In every age there are those who hold power, influence, and authority. Yet the Gospel invites us to be like Mary and look from a different vantage point: from below. Lourdes teaches us to look at things from the point of view of the vulnerable, the elderly, the disabled, the suffering. Pope Leo says we are called to “look at the world from a lower position: through the eyes of those who suffer rather than the mighty; to view history through the eyes of the little ones rather than through the perspective of the powerful; to interpret the events of history from the viewpoint of the widow, the orphan, the stranger, the wounded child, the exile and the fugitive.” This Marian way of seeing is not sentimental—it is transformative. It calls us to respect human dignity, respond to injustice, and allow compassion to guide our choices.

Seeing the world through the eyes of the wounded, as Mary did, allows us in this era of change to nurture hope instead of despair and to help build a civilisation of love. In this vision, it is a fundamental truth that every person — the unborn, migrants, and those nearing death — is to be recognised as the presence of Jesus, someone to be supported, protected, and accompanied. Saying “yes” to God, like Mary ‘Yes” to God’s messenger, the angel Gabriel, becomes for us a “yes” to Jesus in each person we meet, helping him or her to be born, to grow, or to be lovingly accompanied at life’s end.

Let our pilgrimage be a time to practice even more Mary’s “yes” in our lives.