UPDATE: Due to the spotty cell reception on the 3-Day pilgraimge in the French countryside, the Remnant Team was unable to post to this website. Below are the updates posted to Twitter by Michael Matt throuought the weekend:   

Chartres Pilgrimage begins. Thousands gather for sunrise Latin Mass at Saint Sulpice. pic.twitter.com/8luLgsJ3FI

— Michael J. Matt (@Michael_J_Matt) May 18, 2024

 

As we prepare to start walking the third day of the Chartres Pilgrimage, the camp this morning looks like that of an army of God. pic.twitter.com/kFtYyIV36c

— Michael J. Matt (@Michael_J_Matt) May 20, 2024

 

Yes, Candace Owens. The new Catholic jumped straight into the TLM deep end! Welcome, and go get ‘em, kid! pic.twitter.com/5lEqFY31yJ

— Michael J. Matt (@Michael_J_Matt) May 20, 2024

 

As 20,000 people converge on Chartres, France, here’s a brief word on the most powerful demonstration of the Unite the Clans movement in the world today! pic.twitter.com/N3vn7JKOxQ

— Michael J. Matt (@Michael_J_Matt) May 21, 2024

 

God bless Cardinal Müller! The former Prefect of the CDF under BXVI offered the TLM—in the wake of Traditionis Custodes and a disastrous Synodal synod—for 20k pilgrims in one of Europe’s most iconic cathedrals. This is BIG!#chartrespilgrimage2024 pic.twitter.com/KWeJtqBeet

— Michael J. Matt (@Michael_J_Matt) May 20, 2024

 

The largest US chapter in Chartres Pilgrimage history, Our Lady of Guadalupe, arrives at Chartres cathedral after a three day pilgrimage for the restoration of the TLM and the social reign of Christ the King!#chartrespilgrimage2024 pic.twitter.com/ONugFV4f1n

— Michael J. Matt (@Michael_J_Matt) May 21, 2024

 

The future showed up in a big way on the road to Chartres! pic.twitter.com/7Ir9STRpKm

— Michael J. Matt (@Michael_J_Matt) May 21, 2024

THE REMNANT IS ON PILGRIMAGE

IN YOUR CHARITY, please keep our team here at The Remnant in your prayers as we head back to France for the Pentecost Pilgrimage to Chartres. This will be my 31^st anniversary as leader of Our Lady of Guadalupe U.S. Chapter, which means that the Pentecost Pilgrimage has been an important part of the life of The Remnant family for over three decades. And over that time, it has been a grace from God to see the Chartres Pilgrimage take on a life of its own, as it gradually became the largest and most important “meeting of the clans” in the world today.

As readers will recall, this is a real pilgrimage which means a serious physical and spiritual challenge. It’s a three-day, two-night event that entails twelve hours of walking per day, sleeping on the ground at night, and offering up prayers and sacrifices for ourselves, our children, and our countries. I will be keeping the Remnant benefactors of this pilgrimage in my humble prayers as we follow the medieval route from Paris to Chartres (also the first stage of the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage) to venerate the Veil of Our Lady, the third most holy relic in Christendom after the True Cross and the Crown of Thorns.  

Given the number of vocations to the priesthood and religious life that have been discerned along the road to Chartres over the years, I’m hard pressed to think of a single Catholic event that has impacted the life of the Church more than this one. I have finally lost track of the number of marriages that got their start on the U.S. Chapter, but I suppose that number is nearing one hundred by now.

Why does all of this matter to readers of The Remnant? Because readers of The Remnant helped to build this event into the success that it is today. You trusted me back in the early 1990s when I first asked you to support what was at that time a startup piece of Catholic French action. None of us knew if the idea of restoring an ancient pilgrimage was a realistic possibility, or mere fantasy based on a dream.

The Church is something that dies and rises again. The law of the Church is the law of our Blessed Lord. Unless there’s a Good Friday there will not be an Easter Sunday. The Church is always coming out of a tomb. And the Church will come out of this.”  -Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Well, God smiled on this massive undertaking: The Chartres Pilgrimage is the most successful annual traditional Catholic event in the world today. It is impacting the life of the Church from the pews to the highest levels. This year, for example, Cardinal Gerhard Muller (Prefect of the Holy Office under Pope Benedict XVI) will offer the Traditional Latin Mass on Pentecost Monday in the most important cathedral in Christendom.

On Pentecost Sunday – the day before – there may well be more than 20,000 pilgrims on hand for yet another Latin Mass, this time celebrated in the fields of France, alongside the road to Chartres. That sea of pilgrims will be composed of hundreds of young priests and seminarians, countless young families with many children, scouting troops, members of parishes, even subscribers to the same newspaper (in our case) –  all walking in a 3-day demonstration of fidelity to the Faith of our fathers, the Latin Mass, the Queenship of Mary, and the Kingship of Jesus Christ.

And what does all this indicate? That even in the wake of the disastrous Traditionis Custodes, the Church is rising again. Way back when I was a boy, Archbishop Fulton Sheen famously noted that:

“The Church is something that dies and rises again. The law of the Church is the law of our Blessed Lord. Unless there’s a Good Friday there will not be an Easter Sunday. The Church is always coming out of a tomb. And the Church will come out of this.” 

I suppose it could be said, therefore, that so many return to Chartres every year so that they can confirm the brethren, unite the clans, and encourage the remnant of Christendom to keep the faith until the Church comes out of this new tomb. After all, writes Gustav Mahler, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” This is something that becomes so blessedly obvious along the road to Chartres. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to walk the 70-mile Pilgrimage to Chartres but on this 31^st anniversary I want to thank all those readers of The Remnant who believed in this project, and who supported it financially and with your prayers for so many years. Your sacrifice was not in vain, as this event has been lifechanging for hundreds of thousands of people, including the editor of this newspaper. It has become a force multiplier for good, something which defines our movement, sustains our resistance, inspires our youth, and encourages us all, even those who can no longer physically fight but who can pray and walk along in spirit, to remain always confident that despite the Revolution the Faith lives on and the Church will rise from the ashes in God’s good time.

Let me share with you the hope I feel every Pentecost weekend on the Road to Chartres – Hope that is planting the seeds of Faith and Charity that will grow into the mighty forests of Christendom in God’s good time. If you could just see the 20,000 young pilgrims singing their lungs out and praying their Aves over and over again on the Road to Chartres, you would know as I do that all is not lost.

I am so very proud of what we’ve all done together in support of the Chartres Pilgrimage, which also includes raising awareness of the Catholic uprising in the Vendee – the holy ground in Western France where the tree of traditional Catholicism was watered with the blood of 500,000 traditionalists who laid down their lives for the Faith of our Fathers. This year, after the Chartres Pilgrimage, I will take another fifty young Americans back into the Vendee to retell their story and to pledge to finish their fight. I hope you will join us in spirit.

Remnant TV will be reporting from France via Twitter, Facebook, and Remnant-TV.com. If you’d like to follow along, please watch for my daily updates, follow me on Twitter (Twitter.com/ Michael_J_Matt) and sign up for my E-letter.

And, finally, my dear friends, don’t lose hope. Let me share with you the hope I feel every Pentecost weekend on the Road to Chartres – Hope that is planting the seeds of Faith and Charity that will grow into the mighty forests of Christendom in God’s good time. If you could just see the 20,000 young pilgrims singing their lungs out and praying their Aves over and over again on the Road to Chartres, you would know as I do that all is not lost, that this war is just beginning, and that God wins in the end.

Vive le Christ Roi!

 

See the Chartres Pilgrimage in Action - GUARDIAN OF TRADITION

On April 10 this year, four Tibetans were arrested, detained, and supposedly beaten up by Chinese police while in detention as they had protested the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s land grab in Markham county in Chamdo, or Changdu in Chinese, located in the Tibet Autonomous Region, based on a report by Radio Free Asia (RFA).