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The Relics of St Bernadette have arrived in our Diocese, marking the start of a special four day visit across three venues. Bishop Richard, Canon Rob Esdaile, Fr Peter Andrews and Fr Nick Harden welcomed the Relics to St Dunstan's Church in Woking, joined by a large number of parish volunteers, parishioners, pilgrims, and students from St John the Baptist School.

Speaking during the Welcoming Ceremony, Fr Rob said:

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"We have the joy today of welcoming into our church and our community the relics of St. Bernadette, that remarkable woman who was gifted with a deep love of the Lord, faithfulness through every trial and such consistency in her witness to what she had seen and heard.

We celebrate her not as a figure from the distant past but as a sign of the action of God’s Spirit in our present, calling us all to penitence, pilgrimage and a care for the poor.

Bernadette, who was driven by poverty and hunger to seek firewood on a freezing February morning in 1858, is a sign to us all of the God of the Peripheries; the One who raises up the lowly and casts the mighty from their thrones; the one who finds praise on the lips of little ones and places wisdom in the hearts of the overlooked – as we see in the story of David, in the story of Mary, in the story of her child, the Son of David, and in so many of his disciples down through the ages."

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People across our community of faith are invited to visit the Relics of St Bernadette. St Dunstan's will remain open for prayer and veneration throughout the night, before the Relics journey to Arundel Cathedral tomorrow morning (Saturday). To see photographs from St Dunstan's please click here.