Holy Angels, Defend us in Battle!

The Pilgrimage Begins!

Our Pilgrimage this year is, we hope, unique!  As we cannot travel to France and the usual walking Pilgrimage will not, in any case, take place; we bring you the Pilgrimage (in Spirit and in Truth) via various electronic means.  The Pilgrimage will start, as last year, with Mass in St. Sulpice, Paris.  As Churches are now open in France, pilgrims will attend and we therefore look forward to a fine send off.  John Daulton, an Englishman trapped in France, will represent us.  The Mass will be live streamed at 9 am (BST) on the NDC website.

Following the Mass, at 10:45 am, there will be a general presentation of the theme of this year's Pilgrimage: "Holy Angels, Defend us in Battle."  This will be available on the website of the Irish Chapter of St. Patrick.  At 11 am, we will post the first meditation from Canon Montjean of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest on "Who are the Angels?"  The good Father Gerard Byrne has also done a talk on his Parish website. Following this, there will be a video of Fr Serafino Lanzetta, Superior of the Marian Friars of Gosport speaking about the Importance of the holy Rosary.  At 1 pm, Canon Monjean will provide a talk on today's patron, St. Michael Archangel and a talk on the Traditional Mass, the Heart of our Pilgrimage will be available on the Irish website.  At 3 PM, we will post a sermon given by Fr George Roth (Marian Friars of Gosport) on "The Joy of a Good Confession".  At 4 pm, a talk on "Conversion, the First Step of Returning to God" will be available on the Irish website; and at 5 pm a talk on Tradition will be available on the same website.  The Regina Caeli will be posted here at 6 pm.

At 7:30 pm, the Scouts of Riaumont will organise what is called a "Vielle" which involves a bonfire and an historical play (lots of drums).  Usually, the English pilgrims to Chartres miss this as they are soundly asleep in their tents, so this is a great opportunity to see what we have been missing! This is available on the NDC website.   

It's just like the real Pilgrimage -- no opportunity to draw breath!  Obviously, with multiple websites and priests who are not very used to the technology (not to mention my interference!), there could be a few technical blips!  Please have patience (an excellent virtue)! 

We wish you Bon Pelerinage!

Moving Mountains!

We have received the following message from Notre Dame de Chrétienté:

"On the occasion of the launch of the 38th Pentecostal pilgrimage under the theme "Holy angels, protect us in battle", Notre-Dame de Chrétienté is happy to invite you to the Mass of Departure which will be celebrated by the Abbé Fournier, military chaplain, next Saturday, May 30, 2020 at 10 a.m. in the Saint-Sulpice church in Paris.

To respect the number fixed by the parish according to the rules of social distancing applicable to date in churches, we are obliged to ask you to register online as soon as possible; as soon as there are no more places, registration will no longer be possible.

You will have to appear in front of the church at 9.15 am, wearing a mask. After 9.45 am it will no longer be possible to enter the church.

Please share this link (http://www.nd-chretiente.com/stsulpice) with your pilgrims if you do not organize local actions at the same time.

Ad superna semper intenti,

The direction of the pilgrims"

Unfortunately, we are not able to travel to be with our french friends, but it is wonderful that they have prised open the church doors so that pilgrims are able to attend in person.  Deo Gratias!

The Pilgrimage Continues!

NDC has posted this regarding the Coronavirus scare:

More than the epidemic of coronavirus, we must fear the epidemic of fear! For my part, I refuse to give in to collective panic and to subject myself to the precautionary principle which seems to move civil institutions.

I therefore do not intend to issue specific instructions for my diocese: will Christians stop coming together to pray? Will they give up on meeting and rescuing their fellow men?  Apart from the elementary precautions that everyone takes spontaneously so as not to contaminate others when they are sick, it is not advisable to add more. 

We should rather remember that in much more serious situations, those of the great plagues, and when the sanitary means were not those of today, the Christian populations were illustrated by collective prayer, as well as by aid to the sick, assistance to the dying and the burial of the deceased. In short, the disciples of Christ did not turn away from God or hide from the like. On the contrary! 

Doesn't the collective panic we are witnessing today reveal our distorted relationship to the reality of death? Does it not manifest the anxiety-provoking effects of losing God? We want to hide that we are mortal and, being closed to the spiritual dimension of our being, we lose ground. Because we have more and more sophisticated and more efficient techniques, we pretend to master everything and we hide that we are not the masters of life! 

By the way, note that the occurrence of this epidemic during the debates on bioethics laws fortunately reminds us of our human fragility! And this global crisis has at least the advantage of reminding us that we live in a common house, that we are all vulnerable and interdependent, and that it is more urgent to cooperate than to close our borders!

And then we all seem to have lost our heads! In any case, we live in a lie. Why suddenly focus our attention only on the coronavirus? Why hide from us that every year in France, the banal seasonal flu infects between 2 and 6 million people and causes around 8,000 deaths? We also seem to have removed from our collective memory the fact that alcohol is responsible for 41,000 deaths per year, while an estimated 73,000 are attributed to tobacco! 

Far from me then, the idea of ​​prescribing the closing of churches, the suppression of masses, the abandonment of the gesture of peace during the Eucharist, the imposition of such or such mode of communion deemed more hygienic (that said, everyone can always do as they please!), because a church is not a place of risk, but a place of salvation. It is a space where we welcome the one who is Life, Jesus Christ, and where through him, with him and in him, we learn together to be living. A church must remain what it is: a place of hope! 

Should you sulk at home? Should we rob the neighborhood supermarket and build up reserves in order to prepare to hold a seat? No! Because a Christian does not fear death. He is aware that he is mortal, but he knows in whom he has put his trust. He believes in Jesus who affirms to him: "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live; whoever believes in me will never die ”(John 11, 25-26). He knows that he is inhabited and animated by "the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead" (Romans 8, 11).

And then a Christian does not belong to himself, his life is given, because he follows Jesus, who teaches: “He who wants to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life because of me and the Gospel will save it ”(Mark 8:35). He certainly does not expose himself unduly, but neither does he seek to preserve himself. Following his crucified Master and Lord, he learned to give himself generously in the service of his most fragile brothers, with a view to eternal life.

So, let's not give in to the epidemic of fear! Let's not be undead! As Pope Francis would say: do not let your hope be robbed!

+ Pascal ROLAND

Vigilate, Orate, Amate -- Prepare for the Consecration to Our Lady!

These are the three key words that are the perfect summary of the life of Our Lady and the formal instructions of our daily life .

 John Paul II reminds us: "We can gather (in the Rosary) all the events of our individual or family life, of the life of our country, of the Church, of humanity" (RVM 2). He says it and repeats it without tiring: "Mary, be with us, watch over all our human being, over every woman and every man, every child conceived in the maternal womb" .

Is not this what the Queen of France has always done, considering the adoration of the Magi, finding Jesus in Jerusalem, following Him in all His public life, being the first at the tomb on Easter morning. "The whole life of Mary was only a succession of moments, very humble sometimes, but lived with the maximum of love ... In Mary, the sun does not make shade" . (Father Victor). "All of them, with one heart, persevered in prayer, with women and Mary, the Mother of Jesus" (Acts I.14).

Our Lady has always prayed like her Divine Son, knowing instinctively that "to pray is to act invisibly on God and by Him on men and on the whole universe" (Cardinal Saliège). At the foot of the Cross, Mary loved to the end: she accepted the Sacrifice of her Son and even more the maternity of all the men whom He proposed to her. Thus, "as Mother of the Savior, she was co-redeemer of the human race, as a Bride of the Holy Spirit, she participates in the distribution of all graces." (Saint Maximilian Kolbe).

 Our faith in God remains incomplete, if we do not recognize in the Blessed Virgin the Mother of God, the Queen of Saints and Angels, and the Hope of the world ... All the poverty and all the wisdom of all the Saints are in the real, living human person, who is the Virgin, Mother of Christ. Holiness came to them through Her, because in the order desired by God, all graces reach men through Mary. That's why loving and knowing it means discovering the true meaning of things and accessing wisdom.

Without it, the knowledge of Christ is only intellectual, but in Mary, it becomes experience by what it has received the humility and the poverty without which one can not know the Christ. His holiness is the silence in which only Christ can be heard, and we can perceive the voice of God through his contemplation.

"The emptiness, inner solitude and peace without which we can not be filled with God have been given to Mary, that she may receive God in this world, and offer her the hospitality of a perfectly pure, silent being. , resting, at peace, and totally humble "(Thomas Merton).

So, what to do: it is the little Saint Teresa who gives us the answer: "The Blessed Virgin ... never fails to protect me as soon as I invoke her.If I get a worry, an embarrassment, very quickly, I turn to her and always as the tenderest of mothers, she takes care of my interests.

Our Lady - herself - in the many appearances that favored France, always asked us to pray, to do penance and to convert, and at Fatima she asked more insistently for our personal consecration to her Immaculate Heart, which is proposed for each pilgrimage to Chartres.

She knows how much daily life is full of dangers, "filled with obstacles that are found everywhere: the materialism surrounding, the lie established, the force of inertia". That is why Our Lady offers herself to us, offers us this extraordinary way: every morning, to repeat to her our filial love, to ask her humbly - as to our Mother - to hold our hand in all our difficulties, our hesitations, our doubts, our temptations, accepting that we call it "as soon as we begin to falter", and thanking her in the evening.

Father Berto sums up perfectly the necessity of this consecration to Mary: "It is possible that there are many ways from the earth that go to God, but the paths, after a while, come together. all of them to make one, if at some distance from the starting point, we have not met the Blessed Virgin, it is certain that we are lost. "

Reminder: the preparation for the consecration to the Blessed Virgin begins on May 6th, so you only have ONE DAY TO REGISTER on our site. You will receive by mail the daily texts during the 33 days preceding the pilgrimage.  This email will be in French, so you may need to obtain a translation (Google translate?).  Alternately, you can use information from the website fish eaters to support the consecration.  

This preparation for the Consecration is an excellent means to make our pilgrimage fertile.  It is also a beautiful way to thank Our Lady for all the glaces she never ceases to obtain for us with her Son.  

Used with permission of The Evening Standard

Dear Friends,

The fire of the cathedral Notre Dame de Paris this Monday of Holy Week can only make us think of the words of Our Lord "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it" (Saint John 2, 13-25). God has allowed incomparable sufferings with the Passion of Jesus; we must keep a supernatural view of our trials.

Yesterday morning, I listened to Bishop Aupetit ask us to question the deep spiritual reasons that led to the construction of Notre Dame de Paris. He also called us to reconstruct the Church which is not made only of buildings.

Many wondered about the changes that this drama could have on our pilgrimage of Christendom. The pilgrimage will, of course, go ahead!  How could it be otherwise! "It is necessary that France, it is necessary that Christianity continues" said Charles Peguy.

We will inform you as soon as possible of practical changes concerning the first day of pilgrimage, on June 8th. Our Support Teams are currently working on the different options. Be vigilant by regularly consulting our website (www.nd-chretiente.com) or by calling our secretariat (01.39.07.27.00).

In these trials, let's try to mobilize the pilgrims in an exceptional way this year. The fervor of the passers-by on the square of Notre Dame in flames must continue with the fervor of the pilgrims of Christendom!

John Paul II pronounced, on May 30, 1980, this beautiful prayer at the foot of the statue of Notre-Dame de Paris:

 "Virgin Mary, in the heart of the City
We pray for this capital city.
You, the Untainted, keep the purity of faith!

Virgin Mary, from this edge of the Seine,
We pray for the country of France.
You, Mother, teach them hope!

Virgin Mary, in this high place of Christendom,
We pray for all the peoples of the earth.
You, full of grace, make them one in Love. "


Our Lady of Paris, pray for us.
Our Lady of Chartres, pray for us.
Our Lady of Holy Hope, convert us.


Jean de Tauriers
President of Our Lady of Christendom