Dear Fellow Pilgrim, It is my privilege to invite you to join fellow members of the Association of the Miraculous Medal for our May 2024 pilgrimage to northern France. We will visit some of the most beautiful, sacred sites in France, including those associated with the Daughters of Charity and the Congregation of the Mission, the Vincentians.

Arriving in Paris we immediately travel north to Amiens, home to the largest cathedral in France. Notre Dame de Amiens is a stunning 13th century Gothic cathedral. From Amiens we visit the town of Cambrai where four Daughters of Charity: Bl. Marie Madeleine Fontaine, Bl. Marie Francoise Lanel, Bl. Therese Madeleine Fantou, and Bl. Jeanne Gerard were executed during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. The sisters ministered to the poor and sick in nearby Arras. They were brought to Cambrai to be tried and executed because the revolutionary authorities knew that the sisters were beloved by the people of Arras to whom they ministered. They were guillotined on June 26, 1794. These Daughters were beatified on June 13, 1920. Departing Amiens, we visit the village of Folleville where St. Vincent de Paul preached a powerful call to repentance on January 25, 1617, the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. St. Vincent considered this to be his first mission sermon and it inspired him to establish the Congregation of the Mission.

From Folleville, we travel to Lisieux, the home of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. We will pray at the Carmelite convent where the Little Flower dedicated her life to Jesus Christ as a cloistered Discalced Carmelite from age 15 until she died at age 24 and where she is entombed.

Traveling further west we arrive at the American Cemetery at Normandy where the remains of 4,410 American soldiers are interred, most of whom died in the Normandy and Brittany campaigns of 1944.

Our pilgrimage continues to Mont Saint-Michel, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here we will explore the ancient Benedictine Abbey which caps the rocky island. Today, members of the Monastic Fraternities of Jerusalem maintain the spiritual life of the abbey.

Driving south we visit Angers and St. John’s Hospital. The Daughters of Charity began working at the hospital in 1639. On February 1, 1794, Bl. Marie Ann Vaillot and Bl. Odile Baumgarten, who ministered at St. John’s Hospital, were executed by firing squad at Martyr’s Field, a former priory located a short distance from the hospital. They and 97 other Reign of Terror martyrs of Angers were beatified in 1984 by St. John Paul II.

Next, we journey through the beautiful Loire Valley and on to Chartres to visit Notre Dame de Chartres, a Romanesque and Gothic masterpiece noted for its beautiful 13th century-stained glass windows.

We conclude our pilgrimage in Paris with visits to shrines, churches, and chapels, including several associated with St. Vincent and the Congregation of the Mission, as well as St. Catherine Laboure and the Daughters of Charity. After the young novice, Sr. Catherine, received the apparitions of Our Lady in 1830 which would result in the Miraculous Medal, she spent 40 years caring for the elderly and infirm at Hospice d’Enghien in Reuilly near Paris. She died at the hospice Dec. 31, 1876. We hope to have the opportunity to pray at the original chapel of the hospice where Sr. Catherine regularly prayed. We celebrate our final Mass in the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal at the Motherhouse of the Daughters of Charity where Our Blessed Mother appeared to St. Catherine Laboure.

Please join us on this beautiful journey of faith.

To Jesus through Mary,

Fr. Kevin, C.M.