"The route between Paris and Chartres is the first leg of the Way of St James. In itself, however, it has been a pilgrim’s path since the Merovingians, thanks to a well in Chartres
*into which martyrs’ bodies were thrown.
*In the ninth century, Chartres Cathedral acquired a new relic: the Sancta Camisa, Mary’s veil or part of her shirt, which we know to be silk from first-century Palestine.
*Then 35 years ago, a young group decided to revive the route by gathering people together to make the pilgrimage annually at Pentecost, when a bank holiday weekend makes it more feasible for French pilgrims to complete the whole route.
They have since organized themselves into Notre Dame de Chrétienté, the charity which organises
the pilgrimage with military efficiency. The pilgrimage now draws chapters not only from every region of France, but from all over the world. Mass at Chartres was preceded by a parade of the flags and banners of each chapter down the nave, then around and behind the altar. It seemed endless: each one a symbol of dozens of acts of love, gathered to God from east to west.
Penance is what pilgrimage is really about. The Extraordinary Form has a longer Penitential Act. The language of its Offertory begs for mercy and expresses sorrow for sin, in addition to the admiration of God’s goodness expressed in the Ordinary Form’s. Depending on your metric, there’s three times as much breast-striking; and the Prayer of Humble Access is twice repeated.
So there’s a safely contained explanation for why “trads”, and not charismatic, “folk Mass”, or “mainstream” Catholics, would be the ones behind an international lay initiative like this.
But penance, unlike “changing the world”, redeems; and the Church is redeemed all of us together."
CatholicHerald
Response:
1) As for Penance:
*into which martyrs’ bodies were thrown.
*In the ninth century, Chartres Cathedral acquired a new relic: the Sancta Camisa, Mary’s veil or part of her shirt, which we know to be silk from first-century Palestine.
*Then 35 years ago, a young group decided to revive the route by gathering people together to make the pilgrimage annually at Pentecost, when a bank holiday weekend makes it more feasible for French pilgrims to complete the whole route.
They have since organized themselves into Notre Dame de Chrétienté, the charity which organises
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| Sancta Camisa |
Penance is what pilgrimage is really about. The Extraordinary Form has a longer Penitential Act. The language of its Offertory begs for mercy and expresses sorrow for sin, in addition to the admiration of God’s goodness expressed in the Ordinary Form’s. Depending on your metric, there’s three times as much breast-striking; and the Prayer of Humble Access is twice repeated.
So there’s a safely contained explanation for why “trads”, and not charismatic, “folk Mass”, or “mainstream” Catholics, would be the ones behind an international lay initiative like this.
But penance, unlike “changing the world”, redeems; and the Church is redeemed all of us together."
CatholicHerald
Response:
1) As for Penance:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Ephesians 2:9
2) It's NOT the church that redeems you:
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
1 Peter 1:18,19
