News Item: : 36th Annual Paris to Chartres Pentecost Pilgrimage
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
Posted by admin
Thursday 24 May 2018 - 09:29:26

These images are from the Notre-Dame de Chretiente website. Please do see more splendid photographs at their website; and do what you can to promote their annual pilgrimage. 

It was the late Michael Davies who described the annual Paris to Chartres Pentecost Pilgrimage as the most important thing happening in the Catholic Church today.

This annual event revives and takes forward an originally 12th-Century tradition of processing in pilgrimage between the majestic Notre-Dame de Paris and Notre-Dame de Chartres cathedrals.

The event is organized by the Our Lady of Christendom Association; with this 36th annual event being held in honour of St. Joseph, Father and Servant.

Each of the three days of the approximately 70 mile pilgrimage procession is centred on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass. As the organizers point out: this is a magnificent instrument of prayer, which emphasises the universal character of the Mass.

The event is hugely popular with young people and frequently attracts between 8,000-10,000 participants. Michael Matt of The Remnant, estimates on his Facebook page that there were some 15,000 taking part this year.

A particular highlight for the pilgrims this year was the presence of the heart of St. Padre Pio, which bore the sacred wound of the stigmata. St. Pio had recieved this particular wound of transverberation, in a way reminiscent of that received by his spiritual father, St, Francis of Assisi, centuries earlier.

It is moving just to think of St. Padre Pio, a living Crucifix granted by God as a witness of Christ's love and presence in the midst of a world which has so rejected Him through atheism, selfishness, greed, impurity and violence. The miracles, charisms and spiritual power of St. Pio's life and priestly ministry remind the world that God IS. 

When my father was dying at home in 2012, some Capuchin priests allowed us to have a reliquary containing a bloodstained cloth from this heart wound of St. Pio. This gift was a great consolation to us during that painful trial. It must have been marvellous for the pilgrims en route to Chartres, to be in the presence of the actual heart of St. Pio himself. Of course, the wounded heart of St. Pio points us beyond himself to the wounded Heart of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, Really Present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.

The sheer numbers of young people and families who take part in the pilgrimage each year is both a sign of the perennial attractiveness of Catholic Truth and its grace-filled fecundity in bringing forth new life in the Church.

The daily walks can be arduous, with very early starts, long distances to cover and terrain made difficult due to the presence of inclines, rocks and mud.

Doctors and hospitallers of the Order of Malta have an outdoor hospital at each of the campsites and there are shuttle buses provided for any who may find themselves unable to walk on.

The pilgrimage is organised in chapters with lay men, aided by chaplains, organizing chapter hymns, meditations, Rosary and other prayers. The pilgrims aim to live in a spirit of Christ's presence, with friendship and prayer sustaining each of them as they process. Chaplains work among the chapters all the way of the journey, hearing confessions, teaching the Faith and offering pastoral support and guidance.

Participants and observers are often struck by both the large number, and young age range, of the priestly and religious vocations present during the pilgrimage.

This phenomenon underscores the supernatural power of the Sacred Liturgy and the natural fruits which this brings forth whenever Sacred Tradition, and its naturally resultant vocations, are allowed to flourish without hindrance by any man-made ideologies or ideologues.

Although obviously gathered around a central French base, the pilgrimage has a truly international character. There are chapters from all over the world; including, for example, Australia, Canada, England, Poland, Spain and the USA.

The  leadership of the good Cardinal Robert Sarah from Guinea, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, was particularly appreciated by many of the pilgrims this year.

In terms of Catholic Tradition, His Eminence continues to face generally in the right direction and his prayerfulness and writings on the importance of silence and the interior life are very encouraging.

If you have not already done so, his books, God or Nothing - A Conversation on Faith and The Power of Silence - Against the Dictatorship of Noise are well worth reading in this regard.

A particularly impressive aspect of Cardinal Sarah's leadership is the fact that he so recognizes the importance of contemplative life that he founded a Carthusian monastery in his own diocese in Guinea. His Eminence spends time on silent retreat with the monks there every year. In a time when religious life, and contemplative life in particular, falls increasingly under the modernistic strictures from even the very heights of power in the Church, Cardinal Sarah's actions in this regard are doubly important.

As you can see, at the Chartres pilgrimage, the Church is young and alive! It is heartening to see so many young priests and religious brothers and sisters taking part. There are some in the traditional communties who say that the Chartres pilgrimage was an important part of their vocational calling and discernment.   

The pilgrimage concluded at Notre-Dame de Chartres, with Cardinal Sarah offering the Traditional Latin Mass in that sacred and historical cathedral.

During his sermon, His Eminence spoke of the darkness in contemporary Western society, which has so tragically rejected God. He made an urgent call for those present to renounce this darkness and to instead choose the Light of God in Christ.

He called the faithful to spend time in silent prayer each day and, with the Cross of Christ at the centre of their hearts and lives, to pray ''Lord reign in me, I give You all my life!''

He especially called priests to embrace the silence and solitude of prayer, in order to bring Christ's light, rather than merely their own, into the world.

He encouraged his hearers by repeating the necessity of priestly celibacy as a key element of Apostolic Tradition, focused on the priest as alter Christus, another Christ, indeed as ipse Christus, Christ Himself.

He next encouraged evangelizers, parents and families by reminding them of their prophetic mission and, with quotes from the writings of St. Paul, as well as from Humanae Vitae and Veritatis Splendor, recalling them to their vitally important mission with the strengthening words, ''Do not be afraid!'' He also especially encouraged mothers and fathers by reminding them that the Church loves them and their vocation. 

His Eminence provided a particular focus on the young people who had taken part. As the average age of the pilgrims is generally somewhere in the 20's this was particularly presecient.

The cardinal drew from the Gospel of St. John to announce an invigorating call to the young to follow Christ and inviting them to serve as priests and religious, with an unconditional fiat to God.

Towards the conclusion of his sermon, Cardinal Sarah called the people of France to rediscover and rebuild their Christian civilization by immersing themselves in the history and ongoing life of monasticism. He specifically asked people to spend a few days of prayer in a monastery to seek Christ there.

He ended by asking the faithful to ask the ''Most Holy Mother to have a heart like hers, a heart which refuses nothing to God, a heart burning with love for the glory of God, a heart ardent to announce to men the Good News, a generous heart, a heart as profuse as the heart of Mary, as abundant as that of the Church, and as rich as that of the Heart of Jesus. So be it!''

The annual Pentecost pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres is clearly a work of divine grace and a great source of consolation and hope in these times. We would highly recommend it to any young people who are searching for meaning in their lives and who want to go deeper in the pilgrimage and adventure of following Christ as His disciple.

Notre Dame de Chartres - Priez pour nous!  

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This news item is from Torch of The Faith
( http://www.torchofthefaith.com/news.php?extend.1691 )