This year, the 6^th Sunday in Ordinary Time falls on February 11^th, a very important day for our parish.  It was on February 11^th, 1858 that the Blessed Mother appeared for the first time to Bernadette Soubirous at a grotto called Massabielle, along the River Gave, near the village of Lourdes.  February 11^th is thus the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, the patroness of our parish.

 St. Teresa of Avila once said, “Lord, if this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few.”  It is easy to romanticize St. Bernadette’s situation.  “How wonderful,” we might think, “to have such visions of the Blessed Mother.”  Undoubtedly, it was wonderful.  We might even think that it would be wonderful if we ourselves were to be blessed with such revelations.

 But there were also cold, hard facts about St. Bernadette’s situation.  She was a child of abject poverty – poverty so extreme that few of us can even imagine it.  A few years before, her father had been injured in an accident at the mill where he worked.  He lost his job, and the family lost their home.  They lived in various boarding houses but were always turned out because they couldn’t pay.  Finally, a cousin allowed them to live in a small building that had once been a jail cell.  It was about 12 feet square.  On February 11^th, the morning of the first vision, Bernadette had gone out to look for firewood, because her father had been forced to sell the last bundle he had the evening before in order to buy bread for the family.

 Despite the poverty they endured, all reports indicate that Bernadette’s family was close, loving, and devout.  Bernadette needed the support of her family to hold up under what she had to endure during the period of her visions.  Things like these: as she departed from Massabielle on February 25^th, following the 9^th Apparition, she was jeered and taunted by the bystanders who had been watching her.  The following day, the newspaper reported, “Bernadette’s real place should be the insane asylum.”  She was hauled before the Imperial Public Prosecutor to undergo the first in a series of interrogations.

 It was only after the miraculous cures began from the spring which Bernadette uncovered with her bare hands that some people began to accept her.  But it was only some, not all.

 Bernadette faced enormous challenges and pressures from a society that did not accept her.  But she endured them with faith and love for God, even with joy.  Ultimately, she overcame the obstacles.  The icon (the emblem) of her victory is her uncorrupted body, which can be viewed to this day in the Chapel of St. Bernadette at the convent in Nevers, France.

 There is a lesson in that for you and me.

 “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next,” the Blessed Mother told Bernadette during one of the apparitions.

 Our readings today remind us how important it is that we seek our happiness, our joy, and our satisfaction in God.  The first reading, from Jeremiah, reminds us that we cannot rely on acceptance by other people to make us happy.  The gospel reading, which is Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, reminds us of our need to rely on God.

 The blessings that are outlined in the gospel don’t mean that it is good, in and of itself, to be poor, or to be hungry, or to be weeping, or to be hated.  And the woes that are outlined don’t mean that it is necessarily bad to be rich, to be full, to be laughing, or to be spoken well of.

 The point is about our attitude.  Let’s think for just a moment about our own lives.  When everything is going well, how quick we are to forget about the Lord.  We might throw Him a little “thank-you” now and again, but very often we relegate Him to the sidelines.  But when things start to go not-so-good, how quickly we turn to Him and beg His help.

 Jesus is telling us in the gospel that this kind of reliance on God is what we need to exercise at all times.  And He is reminding us that what we often view as misfortune can really be an opportunity to grow closer to Him, and to grow in the virtues of faith, hope, and charity.  Understood in that sense, challenges, obstacles, and hard times can be really incredible chances for grace.  They can be blessings, if we open ourselves to Him and allow them to be.

 Whatever difficulty may be facing you now, whatever difficulty may come your way in the future, remember the example of St. Bernadette and ask the Lord to help you remain faithful to Him and to see it as a chance to grow closer to Him.

 Tell Jesus, “Move over on that Cross, Lord, and make room for me.”