Good news in the Church is even more appealing on the feast that is sometimes described as the Church’s birthday. The annual pilgrimage from Paris to the cathedral at Chartres, which takes place over Pentecost weekend, is growing exponentially.
Jean de Tauriers, president of Notre-Dame de Chrétienté, which organises the pilgrimage, has been celebrating the fact that this annual pilgrimage is growing by about 10% every year, but for 2023 it has grown by 33%.
On Friday 26th May, 16,000 pilgrims gathered outside the church of Saint-Sulpice to walk the 62 miles to the square in front of Notre-Dame de Chartres. In previous years before the disastrous fire, they gathered outside Notre-Dame de Paris, and will again when she is restored. But in the meantime, St Sulpice is the launching point.
Over three hundred seminarians and priests are accompanying the pilgrims, who span over twenty different nationalities. This river of pilgrims will flow down the Parisian roads, out into the suburbs and then the countryside. They will walk and stride, but – perhaps most evocatively – they will saunter.
Each of the words paints a different picture in our minds. Striding is alarmingly purposeful, and perhaps to purposeful for pilgrimages. Walking is a bit bland. Hiking is about self-improvement, but sauntering seems ideal. It has a joyful carefree tone to it. And as it happens, it is THE pilgrimage word.
In the Middle Ages, when many ordinary people throughout Europe would set off on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, people in the villages through which they passed asked would naturally ask them where they were going. The reply would come: “A la Sainte Terre,” – to the Holy Land. And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. To go on pilgrimage is to become a saunterer.
As this river of spiritual explorers and adventurers sets off down the straights of Paris, heading west to Chartres, they may catch the echoes in history of our ancestors who sauntered the same route, for Chartres is an ancient place of pilgrimage. The tradition of walking from Notre Dame to Chartres Cathedral dates back to the 12th century as one of the northern stages in the route of the Camino de Santiago.
Chartres Cathedral was built between 1194 and 1220, in part because Chartres has always been important pilgrimage destination throughout French history. People were drawn firstly to the relic of the Virgin Mary’s veil and later the Cathedral’s numinous blue rose window depicting Our Lady holding the Christ Child.
Pilgrims have perennially been inspired by both need and love. And in particular both the love of Our Lady and the need for her prayers. Ever since she launched the mission of her Son at the wedding in Cana, those in need have been coming to her to enlist her intercessions.
Chartres began to draw people from 876 AD. It was then that Charles the Bald, who had come into the possession of a particular precious relic – once known as known as the “shirt” and now called the Veil of the Virgin – presented it to the Church of Chartres. It was said that she had worn this garment on the day of Christ’s birth. Chartres thus became the place among all to pray in honour of the Incarnation – the coming of God to Earth.
Tradition traces the history of the veil. Worn by the Blessed Virgin during the Annunciation and the Nativity, it was kept initially in Constantinople. It is a piece of plain cream silk 5.35m by 0.46m, dated to the first century. Although it survived the fire of 1194 which devastated the original cathedral it attracted the rage of revolutionaries in 1793. They hacked at it, leaving only two recognisable pieces which have been carefully guarded and preserved in the large reliquary.
It has drawn the faithful down the ages to pray there. Some of the better-known pilgrims who made their way were St Vincent de Paul, St Francis de Sales, the parents of St Therese of Lisieux and St John Paul II.
The walkers or “saunterers” cover roughly 62 miles over 3 days – beginning at daybreak on the Saturday before Pentecost, and ending with an afternoon Mass on the Monday after Pentecost, May 29th. The journey will be covered by 16,000 pilgrims who choose to brave the weather, blisters, and very basic food and accommodation as an act of faith and an act of reparation.
Catholics are beginning to recover their corporate memory of the importance of pilgrimage. Once an essential element in every Catholic’s ambition, it is slowly finding its way back into our secularised lives, so mis-shaped by the pressures and prejudices of modernity.
Sybil Feydeau reflected on her journey: “When we walk sometimes we are in silence, sometimes we sing, we pray, and we have time to speak to each other. It is a good place to meet Christ, and to look at one’s life and decide what I could do better … What does God want me to do with my life?”
The organisers have divided into four age groups with varying difficulty and pace. It even includes a “family group” in which parents with children aged 6 and under camp and walk a portion of the route together.
When the media present us with images of the Church containing mostly elderly people, the images of this pilgrimage set a wholly different tone and picture. Many of the pilgrimage participants are part of youth groups or Catholic scouting troops. They walk in procession carrying flags representing their country or region, crosses and banners with the image of their chosen patron saint.
Catholics from all over the world converge on the pilgrimage. Last year you would have seen a 16 year-old girl from Ireland carrying the Irish flag with babies’ feet painted on it to represent her prayer intention for the unborn after abortion was legalized in her country. A couple from Portugal, newly engaged, decided to mark the beginning of their new life together by walking the pilgrimage to consecrate their state of life to Mary.
A delegation from New Zealand returned to France to give thanks and carried the banner to honour Peter Chanel, a French saint, who was martyred as a missionary in Oceania. Catholics from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and other Middle Eastern countries walked the pilgrimage with a group representing the French organization SOS Chrétiens d’Orient. They had also organized two coinciding pilgrimages for Catholics in Iraq and Syria, to mirror the Chartres event at the same time over Pentecost weekend, in solidarity with the Chartres pilgrims.
Hervé Rolland, vice-president of Notre-Dame de Chrétienté, commented on the organisers’ priorities: “Because so many people come out in the streets to watch the pilgrimage pass by, this year we added an “evangelization team” to engage with curious onlookers. Each year we have people asking if they can follow us. Two years ago there was a lady who was struck by the children walking … She asked, ‘Can I follow you?’ She did, and six months later she asked to be baptized.”
Unsurprisingly the pilgrimage is the birthplace of numerous vocations to the priesthood amongst the young as they pray while they walk, looking both within and without. Three Masses are scheduled to take place over the course of the pilgrimage. In the past, Mass has been offered in the Extraordinary Form; there have been many private Masses as well. On Pentecost last year, Mass took place in a field in the countryside midway through the day’s 20-mile walk.
In 2022, the culminating Mass on Monday was celebrated in Chartres Cathedral by Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard, the emeritus Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels. He summarised some of his feelings about the event, speaking to some of the reporters covering it he reflected:
“I want to tell the pilgrims something: the Catholic Church, no matter what anyone says, remains the most beautiful multinational of the world, that is the multinational of faith, hope and charity. Even if we are going through difficult times, we must always say the creed with conviction: I believe that the Church is one, holy, Catholic and apostolic. We must remember it is holy. In troubled times like ours, everywhere but especially in countries like France or Belgium, my country, there is a lot of confusion after the series of scandals we’ve faced: people definitely need to hang on to something sound. I think that an initiative like the Chartres Pilgrimage helps people to become stronger in faith and hope.”
Pilgrimage has of course constituted a mark of belonging to the Church down the centuries. For those of us who have yet to join others in the saunter of faith across the skin of the earth, but instead travel the byways of the heart, Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote movingly of the interior pilgrimage:
“Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind – these are all a drive towards serving Him who rings our hearts like a bell. It is as if He were waiting to enter our empty, perishing lives.”
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.