Sainte Chapelle

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He has been spending the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip. Asher has a love of history so his dispatches are often full of historical details.

"On September 4, I decided to pay a visit to the Sainte Chapelle in Paris. I had not yet done so, and it seemed like some kind of delinquency to depart from the French capital without having seen the royal chapel. 

 The Sainte Chapelle was built in the mid-thirteenth century by Louis IX, or Saint Louis. It was built to house the relics of the Passion that the French king had bought from Emperor Baldwin II of the Byzantine empire. These relics included the Crown of Thorns.

The chapel housed these until the French Revolution, when they were removed. Until 2019, they were kept at Notre Dame, and in 2024, they were restored after the repairs were finished on the church. 

Therefore, since the nineteenth century, the Sainte Chapelle has been deprived of its original reason for existence but was saved from destruction by its gorgeous stained glass windows, which reach to the ceiling nearly from the floor and minimize the existence of the walls to nearly nothing. 

Having seen that one needed to buy tickets to get in, I nonetheless cockily assumed I could just make my way down at 3:00 pm and buy a ticket at the door. I was wrong. 

By the time I managed to make it there from across town, they had closed the queue for those with no ticket, so I was out of options for that day. Not wanting to waste the time it had taken me to get there, I resolutely decided to take a look around to find something interesting to see. I came across an article online that suggested visiting the Shakespeare and Company bookstore, right across the street from Notre Dame Cathedral. There I went. 

This bookstore has been in its present location since the 1960s, and it bears the same name as a very well known anglophone bookstore in a different part of town that closed in the 1940s. It saw men like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, and James Joyce darken its doorway. In fact, Joyce used it as an office. 

Even today, the newer store that bears the same name is somewhat of a destination for anglophone readers in Paris, and when I arrived in front, there was a line to get in. Once in, I found the bottom floor quite crowded and stuffy; it is there that they have the books for purchase. But once I made my way up some narrow stairs, I found myself in a nice charming set of rooms, replete with old books not for sale but just there to be read. I sat down in a comfy chair and picked up a random book called Chaucer's World and started to read. This was a compilation of Chaucer's work categorized by theme (such as London, war, humor, etc.). I flipped to the section labeled "War," and I found some interesting chronicles about a planned French invasion of England during the Hundred Years War. The young, eager French king attends Mass at Notre Dame before the planned invasion, and I almost got chills when I looked out the window next to me and saw the church itself right across the river. 

After finishing with Chaucer, I went across the river to Saint Severin, a very beautiful Gothic Church within sight of Notre Dame. Personally, I found the gargoyles here to be much more prominent, and I include pictures of them.

The inside was also very beautiful, and I said some prayers inside before heading back. The church previously there was built a little after Notre Dame and was the parish church for the prestigious University of Paris. After being damaged by a fire, it was rebuilt in a later Gothic style. 

During the French Revolution, it was a storehouse for gunpowder and church bells that were melted down to make weapons.

I came back to the Sainte Chapelle on September 9, got in, and was able to see the inside. It was beautiful, and the stained glass windows were as striking as anticipated. 

The only smudge on the picture so to speak was that some of them were covered over for restoration as you can see in the pictures, but the restorers tastefully covered them with highly reflective glass to minimize the visual interruption. I took a zoomed in picture of one of the windows which depicted scenes from the Book of Genesis so you could see the Medieval masterpiece in detail.

This was the last major place I visited in Paris before setting out for Uganda. 

The African part of the gap year definitely is a distinct phase, and it marks the end of the first part in France. I am looking forward to what comes ahead."

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE

Navigating Paris in August

 

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He has been spending the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip.

"As I reflect on my time in Paris, I realized I did not spend much time talking about the mundane elements of life in the French capital.

Before coming here, I had heard from various people that the city was nearly dead in August; that is to say, the Parisians empty out to go on vacation, and only the tourists remain. This turned out to be quite true, and it led to a few very interesting consequences. 

First of all, it helped me to realize just how seriously people in France take vacation time. In France, it is legally mandated for employers to furnish their employees with five weeks of vacation at a minimum. It seems to be a tradition to take a large chunk of this time off in August; hence, the emptying out of Paris that I mentioned before. One example of the result came one night when I finished with a Church activity that I was helping with very late, near midnight; I had not eaten, so I found a place not far from the student residence that was still open. I took the metro from the part of the city where I was back towards the restaurant only to find it dark and a small handwritten sign in the window, "Closed for vacation until the twenty-fifth; have a wonderful summer." And this was not the only place like this; far from it. I saw all sorts of shops, restaurants, and even a Bose store that were similarly shuttered for leisure. 

However, when it comes to the public transit, the vacations are another story. As you might imagine, the flood of tourists to Paris does not slow down in August, and it seems to be a time when the city takes the liberty of shutting down some metro lines for repair work. 

The bus that I would take to Fr. Duloisy's parish where I worked would get almost unbelievably full in the late afternoon when I would head over for the evening Mass. With each stop, perhaps one or two people would get off and five to ten people would get on. Very quickly, all the seats were taken, and there were many of us standing in the aisles and next to the doors. Soon, we were standing shoulder to shoulder. Soon, we were physically jammed in, one against the other. It was like a process of slow suffocation, one bus stop at a time. I would count the stops: Porte de Passy, Raffet, Longchamp...until Porte Dauphine when three quarters of the people would leave to get on a tram that also stopped there. 

One time, when the bus was particularly full, I began to wonder whether there was a legal limit to just how many people you could pack onto a bus like this without it becoming unsafe. Just then, we pulled up to a stop with ten to fifteen people waiting to get on. "Oh, please," I thought, "Surely the driver is doing to put up his hand, tell them he's sorry but that the bus is just too full to accommodate more people. We're already pretty much pushed against each other; there's nowhere else to go." However, to my surprise and chagrin, the driver opened up the doors without a second's hesitation, and everyone flooded on; somehow, they all fit. 

Another time, I had to take the metro from Fr. Duloisy's parish to go downtown, and it had been shut down there for work, so a bus replacement had been set up. The problem, as I quickly realized, was that while a metro was six or seven cars long, a bus was not nearly as big. As the bus pulled up, I realized that this vehicle was so full of humans I might want to consider another means of transport. In the end, I walked the distance to where the metro was open because the bus was so packed, I physically could not fit onboard. I include a picture of this bus. 

For somebody like me who did not grow up in some enormous metropolis like New York, Los Angeles, London or Paris, this whole experience of taking overcrowded buses was quite new. 

Nevertheless, these little inconveniences had their own sort of charm, and they are parts of life in Paris that I will not forget, any more than the beautiful churches or endless museums." 

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE

Children's Rosary at St. John the Baptist Parish in Front Royal, Virginia, USA

Members of the Children's Rosary from Front Royal, Virginia have been encouraging more children to attend their meetings. This group meets every Thursday at 3:30 p.m. in front of the Blessed Sacrament. 

Children's Rosary led the Rosary at the Eucharistic Procession in Dublin, Ireland

Members of the Children's Rosary led the Rosary at the Eucharistic Procession held in Dublin on September 7. This is the third Eucharistic Procession in Ireland where the Children's Rosary has led the Rosary. The prior processions in Derry and Athlone were wonderful events. It is beautiful to see how the children are taking the leadership role in prayer in the community. See some of the pictures below from the procession which was attended by approximately 1,000 people.

A Perfect Time to Start this 40-day Retreat on Suffering

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14) and tomorrow we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows (September 15). Consider making this 40-Day retreat which unpacks the graces of suffering.

Imprimatur Granted by Archbishop Leonard Blair of the Archdiocese of Hartford, CT, USA

The book is now available not only in Ireland and the US but also in the United Kingdom

Order Now

A Soul Prepared through Suffering draws souls to a greater simplicity of spirit often associated with St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, and St. Jean Marie Vianney. This book is for those in the trenches of suffering and for those yet to be put to the test, for it prepares people to understand that suffering shared by a loving God works in ways nothing else can. As God is the director of each of our stories, you may see yourself reflected in this book and find it helps each time you go through it in a different way. Put in the time for this 40-Day journey, and you will find you are different on the other side.

Visit to Koekelberg Basilica in Belgium

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He has been spending the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip. Asher has a love of history so his dispatches are often full of historical details.

"On September 3, I went to Brussels to visit Guido Ossemann, someone who has been a longtime friend of the Children's Rosary and who helped to translate the Children's Rosary book into French and German. He had proposed the visit and offered to drive down to Brussels from Eupen to visit me. He was so kind so as to give a whole day to take me around and welcome me to Belgium. I took the train from Paris North station and arrived in the Belgian capital within an hour and a half. 

A few things stood out to me about the city. First of all, the weather was a bit more severe than in Paris, with colder and windier conditions than I had been privy to in the French capital. Secondly, the bilingual nature of the city was quite evident, with some billboards and ads in French and some in Flemish. Signs and restaurant names were in both languages. One humorous observation is that Belgian car garages are not to be taken lightly. Guido and I got stuck in more than one before the day finished, and it is quite easy to end up driving in circles for fifteen to twenty minutes with no obvious way out of the Minotaur's labyrinth. We ran across some other motorists just leaving their vehicle, but when we stopped to ask the for the exit, they said they also had no idea how they had gotten in or how to get out. There were signs in Flemish and French marked "Sortie" and "Uitgang," but when we followed those, we finished by going in circles. Then Guido noticed some signs in English marked "Exit," and after following those for a while, they eventually led out. I always rather thought the design of a parking garage was rather simple, but not so in Belgium.

Once I arrived and after we had had some lunch, we walked through the Grand-Place, a beautiful square in the center of Brussels that is one of the most iconic features of the city. It was built over a period of six centuries, from the eleventh to the seventeenth. It was severely damaged during the Ninety Years War, and it had to rebuilt after. It includes mostly Baroque architecture, and I was particularly impressed by the large amount of gold there. It has been a hub for the market in Brussels for a long time, and it is clearly the center of the city.

After this, we drove up to the National Basilica of the Sacred Heart. This is a massive church, the fifth largest in the world. It was built throughout much of the twentieth century, beginning in 1905 when King Leopold II laid the first stone and ending in 1970. It is built in Art Deco style with obvious neo-Byzantine influence. 

As the guide explained to us in the church, the king wanted to build a pantheon to honor the great heroes of Belgian history, especially since it was the fiftieth anniversary of their independence. There was not much enthusiasm for this, though, so instead, after visiting the Basilique du Sacre Coeur at Montmartre in Paris, the king decided he would build his own basilica dedicated to the Sacred Heart. The plans originally drawn up were for a neo-Gothic basilica to be built.

The guide went on to say that in the years before the first world war construction of the basilica went on but rather slowly, so much so that by the beginning of the war, only the foundation had been finished. Cardinal Mercier, the archbishop of Mechelen and a great Thomist scholar, resolved publicly during the war to finish the Cathedral once the fighting stopped. 

Nevertheless, times had changed and instead of the neo-Gothic basilica, the plans evolved to include a more modern Art Deco plan. The church was consecrated in the mid-1930s, while it was still being built, and work continued right until the end, only interrupted by the Second World War. 

The proportions of the building really are quite extraordinary, and you can ascend to an overlooking balcony to see just how majestic it is. There are at least four main altars, one behind the other leading to the back of the church. 

There is also perpetual adoration in a chapel off to the side of the church. 

After spending some time at the church, Guido and I met with a very nice lady named Chantal Nzimbala, who is from the Congo. She is an adorer at the basilica and was interested in trying to spread the Children's Rosary at the basilica with the children that attend. We are grateful to her for her time and interest.

After this, we nearly got washed away in a furious rainstorm that came upon us all of a sudden. The rain was coming down so hard it was bouncing off the pavement, and I only had time to dash under the tiniest of outcroppings from the church. It was enough to protect my backpack but not my shoes, which ended up getting completely soaked. Ah well, it was a free shower, I suppose.

Guido took me to dinner afterwards, and then I caught a late train back to Paris for the night, I was so happy I had been able to meet Guido, and I found the visit to Brussels very interesting and refreshing."

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE

Visit to Chartres Cathedral

Asher Kaufman, age 18, set out on June 28 for a yearlong trip to help spread the Children's Rosary in Europe and Africa. He has been spending the months of July, August and the first two weeks in September in France. He grew up helping the Children's Rosary and participating in it. He now is helping to spread the Children's Rosary to more parishes and schools. He is also discerning a vocation to the priesthood and has applied to the seminary through the Archdiocese of Hartford. Please keep both his trip and his vocation in your prayers. He has been sharing dispatches from the trip. Asher has a love of history so his dispatches are often full of historical details.

"On August 23, I took the afternoon after my classes ended to visit the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Chartres. This is a very important church about an hour outside of Paris in the town of Chartres. It is another medieval Gothic construction, somewhere between classic and high Gothic architecture. Saint Denis, which I spoke of in another post, is early Gothic architecture, while the Chartres Cathedral comes a bit later, built between 1194 and 1220. This was when Philip II sat on the throne of France. 

Philip II is notable for breaking the Angevin Empire in the Battle of Bouvines. It was a dramatic success for the French, and he succeeded in pushing the Holy Roman Empire, the English, and the Flemish out of French lands. As a result, King John of England suffered from a weakened political standing, leading to his being forced to sign the Magna Carta in 1215, a very important development for the idea of limited monarchy in Britain.

However, to return to the Chartres Cathedral, the story of the church begins in the early eleventh century. At this point, a large fire destroyed most of the cathedral at that time standing in Chartres. St. Fulbert of Chartres (who is a well-known figure in his own right, having helped to create the feast day on September 8 honoring the Virgin Mary) began an effort to rebuild the cathedral. He received much help, including donations from nobility and royalty. This church was Romanesque and built over a long period of time, but it too was mostly destroyed by a fire in 1194. Thus, the Cathedral we see now dates from then, when the reconstruction started. 

It was important to mention St. Fulbert because it was him that established the School of Chartres, a very important Scholastic school of theology that helped to spark the twelfth century renaissance, a movement that saw the rise of Gothic architecture, renewed interest in translation of ancient Greek texts, and increased trade with the Middle East. Geometry, natural science, and mathematics saw fresh enthusiasm. 

In 1260, King Louis IX (or Saint Louis) was present for the consecration of the cathedral. Further, it was in Chartres Cathedral that Henry IV was crowned king of France in 1594. Typically, Reims Cathedral was used for that purpose, but Reims Cathedral was occupied by the Catholic league that I mentioned in an earlier post. Recall that Henry was at that time Protestant and that there was a league of nobles (and nations) allied against him for that reason. 

Modern history has seen Chartres Cathedral dodge several serious dangers, often due to the heroism of those who risked much to save it. 

During the French revolution, the Cathedral managed to escape without much damage. A statue on the north porch was attacked by a crowd, but the townspeople of Chartres turned out in greater numbers to defend their cathedral, and the mob was turned back. After, the revolutionary government moved ahead with a plan to destroy it. They consulted an architect on where to place the explosives to blow up the building. He managed to rescue the church after advising the government that due to the immensity of the structure, the damage caused by such a tactic would be so great, the rubble so copious, it would take years to clean the streets. The government backed off and left the cathedral untouched for the rest of the revolution until Napoleon restored Catholic worship there. 

In 1836, the Cathedral suffered a serious fire, much like Notre Dame de Paris did in 2019. The roof was destroyed, but the main structure and the stained-glass windows were unharmed. 

During the Second World War, a division of American troops found themselves trapped behind German lines after the D-day invasion of Normandy. They were in Chartres and suffering a bloody defeat in their attempt to liberate Chartres. An American colonel in command, a West Point-educated Texan by the name of Welborn Griffith, searched the cathedral for German snipers on the night of August 15, 1944. The Germans were in the habit of placing snipers in church steeples when the Allied armies would attack, so this was a natural place to search. They found no snipers. 

The next morning, the Americans recommenced their attack, and German snipers went up into the Church steeples and began firing on American forces. The American troops began firing back. As they inched closer to the church, the Germans fled their sniper posts. The Americans, however, unaware of this, prepared to target the church steeples with howitzers; these certainly would have caused severe damage not just to the steeple but to the whole church when the steeple collapsed.

It was at this moment that Colonel Griffith arrived. Seeing the impending assault on the church and having seen no snipers the night before, he ran up and ordered the troops to hold their fire. The soldiers protested, and there was a lively argument. Finally, Colonel Griffith agreed to go into the church again and search the building. This he did, and, finding no snipers, he waved his arms from the steeple, shouted "No snipers!", and rang the church bells. At this, the Americans held their fire, and Chartres Cathedral was saved. Later that day, Colonel Griffith was killed in action in Lèves, a town not far away. The townspeople dedicated a plaque to him, and he was posthumously given the Purple Heart and the Silver Star. The French government admitted him posthumously into the Legion of Honor, the highest recognition they give, military or civil.

Chartres Cathedral is home to the Sancta Camisa, the tunic of Mary which has made Chartres an important pilgrimage site since the Middle Ages. I spent a long time in front of this tunic, praying and just sitting in awe of the relic.

After visiting the cathedral, I decided to walk down to St. Pierre Church, which I had heard from one of my classmates was quite beautiful as well.

St. Pierre (shown directly above) was built between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries in Gothic style. It was the church of the Abbey of Saint-Père-en-Vallée. During the French Revolution, the abbey was closed and the church used for the production of potassium nitrate. In 1803, the church was reopened as a parish church. It housed for a long time a plaque with images of the twelve apostles from the time of Francis I, but these are now in Chartres's museum of art. 

I said a rosary in one of the side chapels and really came to quite like this church. The first thing that struck me about it was the silence one perceived upon entering. It was palpable, like a heavy blanket that envelops you and smooths over any rough spots underneath. There was, quite literally, no one here for much of the time I was inside. This was in stark contrast to the Chartres Cathedral or other famous churches like Notre Dame de Paris, where there is always a low buzz of people talking and the murmur of tour guides.

Not so at St. Pierre. The general appearance was quite charming; there was no recent restoration, no shining interior; on the contrary, the place had the feel of a long-neglected mansion, with plants growing up on the majestic flying buttresses and moisture seeping into the rib vaulted roof. I must say, I highly recommend visiting St. Pierre's if one goes to Chartres because it reminded me of what a monastery must have felt like in the Middle Ages; I could almost feel the years of prayer emanating from the stone walls from the monks who must have prayed, meditated, lived, and died in that church. I almost think I would not have been entirely surprised had I seen a medieval Benedictine monk turn the corner, praying his breviary, the Latin invocations drifting down the nave...

Next, I stopped at St. Aignan. This is another parish church of Chartres whose story dates back to the ninth century, but most of the current structure dates to the sixteenth century, and it was built in Renaissance style. It served as a hospital during the revolution. It has a simpler interior with very nice stained-glass windows. The chapel behind the High Altar has been closed to the public due to the danger posed by falling rock; the church has seen extensive work to stabilize the structure, and more work is on the way for the chapel. 

For a few years now, the church has been administered by the Fraternity of St. Peter, a traditional Catholic order dedicated to celebrating the Latin Mass. I spoke with the priest who was just stationed there. He seemed very interested in the Children's Rosary, and I gave him a Children's Rosary book. 

I attended the evening Latin Mass there, and afterwards I had dinner near the Cathedral.

I walked down to the train station to catch my train back to Paris. All in all, it was a lovely afternoon in Chartres. 

To see all of Asher's dispatches from his journey click HERE