Every year the Sanctuary of Lourdes gives pilgrims a theme to walk with. This year it’s the angel’s greeting to Mary: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee” (Luke 1:28). This is the Annunciation: the year of welcome, of listening, and of the yes that changed everything.

It’s the first step of a three-year journey with Mary through St Luke’s Gospel: the Annunciation this year, then the Visitation in 2027, a year of service and joyful charity, and the Magnificat in 2028, a year of praise and gratitude.

On 25 March 1858, the feast of the Annunciation, Our Lady told Bernadette: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” The Sanctuary points out that the date is no coincidence. In that moment Mary was doing at the Grotto what the angel had done at Nazareth: revealing who she is, simply and truthfully. Lourdes, they say, is a living continuation of the Annunciation. In both places God chooses simplicity, silence and humility, and in both places grace is never forced on anyone. It waits, always, for a willing answer.

Bernadette’s answer echoed Mary’s: humble, trusting, not understanding everything, and coming back day after day. That is the invitation the Sanctuary makes to every pilgrim this year, in Lourdes or at home: welcome the grace, recognise the presence, and dare to say yes.

The Sanctuary’s meditation for the year lingers on Fra Angelico’s great painting of the Annunciation. The angel doesn’t come storming in; he bows, almost kneeling, and brings a light that reveals rather than dazzles. Mary sits on a simple stool, hands crossed over her heart, listening. At that moment she knew nothing of what lay ahead. She had no map. What she had was a willingness, a Presence, and a grace she hadn’t earned.

Every beginning in faith looks like this, the meditation says: a quiet conversion starting, a dormant faith waking, a call whispered. Mary is the way, not the goal; her whole purpose is to take us by the hand and lead us to her Son. Her message at Lourdes is the same as at Cana: “Do whatever he tells you.”

In the prayer of the Rosary, the Annunciation is the first Joyful Mystery: it leads us into quiet reflection, inviting us to listen to God’s word just as Mary did. The Rosary is prayed at the Grotto every day at 3.30 in the afternoon and again each evening during the torchlight procession, and on Mondays and Saturdays the joyful mysteries are prayed twice a day. And step inside the Rosary Basilica: among the mosaics that decorate it is the Annunciation itself, the theme of the year, a visual catechesis deeply rooted in the Sanctuary’s prayer.

Bernadette left one line that the Sanctuary calls the key to the whole adventure: “Love is enough.”

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This week you’ve been welcomed, you’ve listened, you’ve said yes. Those aren’t only Lourdes words. They’re the shape of Go, Make Disciples: Bishop Patrick’s invitation to the whole diocese over the next five years: to encounter God’s love, to grow as disciples, and to carry that love to the people around us.

And it doesn’t stop here. Next year Mary sets out to serve, the Visitation, and the year after she sings the Magnificat. Welcome, service, praise: it’s the same road our whole diocese is walking, one step at a time.

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