Sermon for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Year A, August 16th 2026
By The Rev. Larry D. Herrold, Jr.
Help us, O Lord, to hear the call of your saints and angels, bidding us to a more loving devotion of you… Amen…
One day, February 11th, 1858 to be exact, a young French girl named Bernadette was out collecting firewood with her sister and another friend near a grotto (a small cave) when she saw a vision.
In the words of Bernadette ‘I raised my head and looked towards the grotto. I saw a Lady dressed in white, wearing a white dress, a blue girdle and a yellow rose on each foot, the same colour as the chain of her Rosary’.
Shocked and amazed, Bernadette rushed to tell her parents what she saw. Perhaps to her surprise, they did not like what they heard, and they forbade her from returning to the grotto.
But on February 14th she went back, and the woman appeared to her again… and this happened again on the 18th. And it was on this third visit that the Lady asked Bernadette to come back to the grotto every day for the next two weeks.
At these subsequent visits the woman asked the young girl to build a chapel on the grounds, to pray there for the conversion of sinners, and to drink from the fresh spring water that flowed from the grotto.
Word of these meetings between Bernadette and the woman spread quickly through the town and the authorities were suspicious. They detained her, interrogated her, and harassed her as if she were a common criminal, an all too common experience for those that society deems ‘mentally ill’.
Despite these hardships, despite the doubts of those who heard her stories, she persisted. She said ‘there was something in me that enabled me to rise above everything. I was tackled from all sides, but nothing mattered and I was not afraid’.
The local townspeople, particularly the poor, began to believe in Bernadette’s story and began daily going to the grotto to pray, as the woman had asked.
Then, on March 25th, the Feast of the Annunciation, the Lady appeared again in the grotto… and this time she shared her name… Mary…
‘With her two arms hanging down, she raised her eyes and looked up to the sky, and it was then that she told me, joining her hands together now at the height of her breast, that she was the Immaculate Conception. Those were the last words she ever spoke to me’…
Four years after the Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette the local bishop ruled that the apparitions were indeed authentic. Bernadette eventually became a nun, a church was built near the grotto, and pilgrims began to pour in.
After Rome and Jerusalem the town of Lourdes in France is the most popular place for Christian pilgrimage. Pilgrims come from all over the world to drink and bathe in the waters of that sacred spring. And in April 2025 the 72nd miraculous healing was confirmed, with 7000 other unverified cases of healing being reported since the shrine was dedicated.
Where do you find hope?
Where do you find healing?
Who shows you the way to Jesus?
I must admit to you that there are days when I struggle to feel hope. There are days when I feel a deep need for healing. And there are days when I need to be shown the way to Jesus.
For most of the Church’s history Christians had agreed on who they could turn to for each of these concerns… the saints… especially Mary.
Poor peasant farmers looked forward to the various feast days that would give them cause to pause their work and enjoy the fruits of their labours.
Terminally ill people, those struggling with mental illness, couples struggling to conceive, and all sorts of people experiencing pain in body, mind, or soul would go on pilgrimage to shrines that promised them healing and hope for a brighter future.
And sinners and outcasts, when hearing heroic tales of redemption and even martyrdom, would find a newfound zeal for Christ and seek His forgiveness for themselves.
It was the Protestant Reformation that changed all of that. It was never Luther’s intent, but those who took his teachings a bit too far felt justified in their actions when they tore down statues, shattered stained glass windows, profaned altars, and closed the shrines and monasteries.
It wasn’t the rich who suffered at the hands of radical zealots… it was the poor… people for whom the saints, and the Virgin Mary, were a source of hope, healing, and wholeness.
Shrines like that to Our Lady of Lourdes existed all over Europe, but they were stripped away by an overzealous few, only for their power to just now be rediscovered.
Why am I sharing all of this with you today?
Why are we commemorating, specifically, the day that Mary was assumed up into heaven?
Isn’t that all ‘too Catholic’?
I grew up Methodist, and I can recall exactly zero occasions on which Mary was mentioned in church. If there was even just one time it was probably at a Christmas pageant when a little girl would dress up as Jesus’ mother.
In my experience most American Protestants have no clue what to do with Mary. They may never think of her… and I think that’s a shame.
There’s something missing in our faith when we don’t consider the person who would have undoubtedly known Jesus the best… His own mother.
From the very beginning of the Gospel of Luke we hear of the favour shown to Mary. She was chosen, pure and holy, to be the God-bearer, to bring Christ into the world.
And in response to the immense honour shown to her she sings a song that mirrors the Song of Hannah in the Old Testament, the Magnificat… ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour…’.
Imagine, for a moment, what that must have been like. To be a young girl, probably just thirteen or fourteen years old, and to be visited by an angel who tells you that you are to conceive by the Holy Spirit… that must have been terrifying.
Your fiancé, Joseph, may not believe you. Your parents may not believe you. Your community may not believe you… but you know it’s true.
And despite all the fear, all the uncertainty, all the risk with no certain reward other than the promise of God… Mary says yes.
And because of her ‘yes’, all generations shall call her blessed.
To honour Mary is to honour Jesus who is the fruit of her womb.
To honour Mary is to adopt, for yourself, the hope that she proclaims in her song of praise:
That in a world where mercy is a sign of weakness, God is merciful.
That in a world governed by the rich and powerful, God casts them down from their thrones and instead lifts up the lowly.
That in a world where many are hungry, God fills them with good things and sends the rich away empty.
That in a world of broken promises, God remembers His chosen people…
Bernadette, who is herself now remembered as a saint, was just a child… probably the same age as Mary when Mary had conceived.
The people in power didn’t believe her, but she kept her heart and soul open anyway, and her faithfulness has given the Church, and the world, one of its greatest holy places…
A place where the poor, the outcast, the sick and the lame, the hungry and homeless, can all come… to drink of the living water, to bathe and wash their sins away… to pray for their own miracle…
My first pilgrimage, in 2024, began with Morning Prayer at Southwark Cathedral in London. It’s the church Shakespeare attended.
The priest took me aside afterward and offered a blessing over me as I prepared to set off on my 90 mile walk to Canterbury. In his prayer he asked that the blessed Virgin Mary, and a few other saints, pray for me as I made my journey.
I didn’t really know what to make of it then, but I did feel a great sense of comfort. I decided to go to the cathedral shop and buy myself a rosary. And during that week, especially as I slogged through rain and wind and mud, as my feet ached and my knees popped, I prayed with this rosary.
I firmly believe that as I walked Mary was praying for me, bidding me to press on and draw nearer to her Son, who was waiting for me at the altar that Easter Sunday when I arrived at Canterbury Cathedral… at my place of hope and healing… my place of resurrection…
Where do you find hope?
Where do you find healing?
Who shows you the way to Jesus?
Do not close yourself off from the power of Christ’s saints. Do not turn away from the love of Christ’s holy mother. Turn toward them, and in doing so, find yourself walking into the arms of your Brother, Saviour, and Lord.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… Amen…
By The Rev. Larry D. Herrold, Jr.
Help us, O Lord, to hear the call of your saints and angels, bidding us to a more loving devotion of you… Amen…
One day, February 11th, 1858 to be exact, a young French girl named Bernadette was out collecting firewood with her sister and another friend near a grotto (a small cave) when she saw a vision.
In the words of Bernadette ‘I raised my head and looked towards the grotto. I saw a Lady dressed in white, wearing a white dress, a blue girdle and a yellow rose on each foot, the same colour as the chain of her Rosary’.
Shocked and amazed, Bernadette rushed to tell her parents what she saw. Perhaps to her surprise, they did not like what they heard, and they forbade her from returning to the grotto.
But on February 14th she went back, and the woman appeared to her again… and this happened again on the 18th. And it was on this third visit that the Lady asked Bernadette to come back to the grotto every day for the next two weeks.
At these subsequent visits the woman asked the young girl to build a chapel on the grounds, to pray there for the conversion of sinners, and to drink from the fresh spring water that flowed from the grotto.
Word of these meetings between Bernadette and the woman spread quickly through the town and the authorities were suspicious. They detained her, interrogated her, and harassed her as if she were a common criminal, an all too common experience for those that society deems ‘mentally ill’.
Despite these hardships, despite the doubts of those who heard her stories, she persisted. She said ‘there was something in me that enabled me to rise above everything. I was tackled from all sides, but nothing mattered and I was not afraid’.
The local townspeople, particularly the poor, began to believe in Bernadette’s story and began daily going to the grotto to pray, as the woman had asked.
Then, on March 25th, the Feast of the Annunciation, the Lady appeared again in the grotto… and this time she shared her name… Mary…
‘With her two arms hanging down, she raised her eyes and looked up to the sky, and it was then that she told me, joining her hands together now at the height of her breast, that she was the Immaculate Conception. Those were the last words she ever spoke to me’…
Four years after the Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette the local bishop ruled that the apparitions were indeed authentic. Bernadette eventually became a nun, a church was built near the grotto, and pilgrims began to pour in.
After Rome and Jerusalem the town of Lourdes in France is the most popular place for Christian pilgrimage. Pilgrims come from all over the world to drink and bathe in the waters of that sacred spring. And in April 2025 the 72nd miraculous healing was confirmed, with 7000 other unverified cases of healing being reported since the shrine was dedicated.
Where do you find hope?
Where do you find healing?
Who shows you the way to Jesus?
I must admit to you that there are days when I struggle to feel hope. There are days when I feel a deep need for healing. And there are days when I need to be shown the way to Jesus.
For most of the Church’s history Christians had agreed on who they could turn to for each of these concerns… the saints… especially Mary.
Poor peasant farmers looked forward to the various feast days that would give them cause to pause their work and enjoy the fruits of their labours.
Terminally ill people, those struggling with mental illness, couples struggling to conceive, and all sorts of people experiencing pain in body, mind, or soul would go on pilgrimage to shrines that promised them healing and hope for a brighter future.
And sinners and outcasts, when hearing heroic tales of redemption and even martyrdom, would find a newfound zeal for Christ and seek His forgiveness for themselves.
It was the Protestant Reformation that changed all of that. It was never Luther’s intent, but those who took his teachings a bit too far felt justified in their actions when they tore down statues, shattered stained glass windows, profaned altars, and closed the shrines and monasteries.
It wasn’t the rich who suffered at the hands of radical zealots… it was the poor… people for whom the saints, and the Virgin Mary, were a source of hope, healing, and wholeness.
Shrines like that to Our Lady of Lourdes existed all over Europe, but they were stripped away by an overzealous few, only for their power to just now be rediscovered.
Why am I sharing all of this with you today?
Why are we commemorating, specifically, the day that Mary was assumed up into heaven?
Isn’t that all ‘too Catholic’?
I grew up Methodist, and I can recall exactly zero occasions on which Mary was mentioned in church. If there was even just one time it was probably at a Christmas pageant when a little girl would dress up as Jesus’ mother.
In my experience most American Protestants have no clue what to do with Mary. They may never think of her… and I think that’s a shame.
There’s something missing in our faith when we don’t consider the person who would have undoubtedly known Jesus the best… His own mother.
From the very beginning of the Gospel of Luke we hear of the favour shown to Mary. She was chosen, pure and holy, to be the God-bearer, to bring Christ into the world.
And in response to the immense honour shown to her she sings a song that mirrors the Song of Hannah in the Old Testament, the Magnificat… ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour…’.
Imagine, for a moment, what that must have been like. To be a young girl, probably just thirteen or fourteen years old, and to be visited by an angel who tells you that you are to conceive by the Holy Spirit… that must have been terrifying.
Your fiancé, Joseph, may not believe you. Your parents may not believe you. Your community may not believe you… but you know it’s true.
And despite all the fear, all the uncertainty, all the risk with no certain reward other than the promise of God… Mary says yes.
And because of her ‘yes’, all generations shall call her blessed.
To honour Mary is to honour Jesus who is the fruit of her womb.
To honour Mary is to adopt, for yourself, the hope that she proclaims in her song of praise:
That in a world where mercy is a sign of weakness, God is merciful.
That in a world governed by the rich and powerful, God casts them down from their thrones and instead lifts up the lowly.
That in a world where many are hungry, God fills them with good things and sends the rich away empty.
That in a world of broken promises, God remembers His chosen people…
Bernadette, who is herself now remembered as a saint, was just a child… probably the same age as Mary when Mary had conceived.
The people in power didn’t believe her, but she kept her heart and soul open anyway, and her faithfulness has given the Church, and the world, one of its greatest holy places…
A place where the poor, the outcast, the sick and the lame, the hungry and homeless, can all come… to drink of the living water, to bathe and wash their sins away… to pray for their own miracle…
My first pilgrimage, in 2024, began with Morning Prayer at Southwark Cathedral in London. It’s the church Shakespeare attended.
The priest took me aside afterward and offered a blessing over me as I prepared to set off on my 90 mile walk to Canterbury. In his prayer he asked that the blessed Virgin Mary, and a few other saints, pray for me as I made my journey.
I didn’t really know what to make of it then, but I did feel a great sense of comfort. I decided to go to the cathedral shop and buy myself a rosary. And during that week, especially as I slogged through rain and wind and mud, as my feet ached and my knees popped, I prayed with this rosary.
I firmly believe that as I walked Mary was praying for me, bidding me to press on and draw nearer to her Son, who was waiting for me at the altar that Easter Sunday when I arrived at Canterbury Cathedral… at my place of hope and healing… my place of resurrection…
Where do you find hope?
Where do you find healing?
Who shows you the way to Jesus?
Do not close yourself off from the power of Christ’s saints. Do not turn away from the love of Christ’s holy mother. Turn toward them, and in doing so, find yourself walking into the arms of your Brother, Saviour, and Lord.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… Amen…