Any traveller on the tourist trail around Paris might visit the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and Notre Dame Cathedral. They might also climb Montmartre to see the Sacré Coeur Basilica. But to travel to Paris as a pilgrim is different because you look at these locations in a different way and may visit places which are not normally part of the tourist package. This was certainly my experience this time last year at the beginning of Advent when I joined the school’s sixth form journey to the Rue du Bac in the French capital.
I had heard of the sixth form pilgrimages before and there are photographs of previous journeys in the student common room – including visits to Santiago de Compostela, Assisi, Auschwitz and Rome. When I heard this year it would be Paris, it immediately caught my attention – everyone knows something about Paris and wouldn’t miss a chance to go there. I was less familiar with the ‘Rue du Bac’ but it sounded an interesting story. The events which took place here are all about St Catherine Labouré, a young nun who in 1830 experienced visions of the Virgin Mary in her convent in this Paris street and was asked to share with the world the image of a new religious medal – it was to become so popular and inspire so much devotion that it became known as the ‘Miraculous Medal’. The chapel where all this took place was to be the destination on our sixth form pilgrimage – three days I will never forget.
Our journey to France was by train. I remember the excitement at Birmingham New Street and the crazy tube journey across London in the rush hour to St Pancras International - here we caught our Eurostar train. Next stop France! The design of St Pancras is breath taking, a glass cathedral of light on the first part of our pilgrimage, which would take us beneath the English Channel, through northern France and into the heart of Paris.
It was mid morning in the heart of Paris but every pew was fullThe accommodation which had been offered was the convent of the Sisters of Montmartre, next to the Sacré Coeur Basilica. It was an amazing place to stay. Archbishop Grimshaw School has known these Sisters for many years as every September a group of our youngest pupils visit Tyburn Convent near Hyde Park on the Year 7 English Martyrs pilgrimage to London, which is in honour of our tutor group saints. I myself was a Year 7 pilgrim in 2003! The Sisters at Tyburn Convent also have a community at the Sacré Coeur Basilica on top of Montmartre and had invited our school to stay there. I’d never stayed in a convent before – it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. A young French nun greeted us when we arrived and showed us to our rooms. We were then allowed to go down a corridor into the Basilica itself which was now locked but people pray there all night keeping a vigil. Hundreds of candles made this beautiful building sparkle. I had never seen anything like it before. If you have been to Paris you will know that the Basilica is very high up and the view from our rooms gazing across the city in the moonlight was also spectacular. It had been an amazing day at the start of our Advent journey but our final destination still awaited us in the Rue du Bac.
The Rue du Bac is quite a fashionable street with lots of boutiques, wine shops and fine art galleries. The road is busy with cars and delivery vans, not quite what I expected for a place of pilgrimage, but sign posts direct you to the ‘Chapel of the Miraculous Medal’ so I knew we were on the right path. The convent where St Catherine Labouré lived is through an archway off the main street and as we approached I could see a crowd of people and nuns everywhere dressed in more modern clothing than the Sisters in Montmartre. Our group was given a very friendly welcome by the Sisters and they were really pleased to see us. They are called the ‘Daughters of St Vincent de Paul’ but you still call them Sister!
Mass was about to begin in the chapel and we were shown in. It was mid morning in the heart of Paris but every pew was full, as were the balconies around the chapel. Everything was very quiet and still. Some people were praying near the altar which is where Mary had appeared, seated in a chair. So many people visit this place every year with their own prayers and concerns. The Mass was in French, which I’m not very good at, but it made the prayers I have heard many times before seem different, more mysterious and beautiful. It is difficult to explain – the atmosphere, the people’s stillness and devotion, the paintings of the visions on the walls, the prayers of the priest speaking in French, made it all seem quite awesome really. All this in a little street off a main road in Paris.
Our final evening was a memorable occasion. The day after our visit to the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal we had spent some time wandering around Paris in our group. We visited the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which is a huge gothic building by the River Seine, very different in design to the Sacré Coeur, its beautiful stained glass windows making patterns on the Cathedral floor with the bright winter sunshine. I remember the amazing oil portraits in the Louvre and the long walk through the Christmas shoppers along the Champs Elysees. That morning in the convent in the Sacré Coeur Basilica, we had had the opportunity to talk to a Sister from England who had joined the Sisters of Montmartre after working in Paris as a business woman. She was very friendly and very down to earth with a great sense of humour and told us that her family and friends were astonished when she became a nun but it was after a number of years going to Mass late at night in the Sacré Coeur which helped her make her decision. The Mass is at 10.00pm every night before the Basilica closes and she invited our group to take part that night. The whole place was lit by candlelight with hundreds of Parisians present. On a much grander scale this time, it was a similar experience to the Rue du Bac, very still and quiet and very beautiful. When the Basilica closed some of the Sisters and other people stayed there all night. I saw a poster which read, ‘Here, day and night, somebody is praying to the Lord.’
Even now, a year later, I sometimes look at the clock and think that the Mass in the Sacré Coeur has just started. Or I think about the chapel full of people in the Rue du Bac and the story of St Catherine Labouré. It was an amazing journey to follow during Advent with all the Christmas excitement in Paris but also the stillness and prayers. It was an experience I will never forget. This December I am joining this year’s sixth form pilgrimage to the priory of Sant Agostino in San Gimignano in Italy. And I will be taking my Miraculous Medal with me.
