Children's Rosary to Lead Rosary at Eucharistic Procession in Dublin September 7, 2025

 

Visit to Cluny Museum of Medieval History in Paris

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 a sunny Saturday morning in August, I decided to pay a visit to the Cluny museum of medieval history in Paris. Having taken a medieval history class in my freshman year of high school, I found I had quite a liking for that period. I had heard from a classmate in my French class that the Cluny museum was worth a visit, so I decided to go ahead and pay it a visit. 

The museum contains a very diverse, if a bit scantily labelled, collection of artifacts from Gaul and Europe at large. I will share a few pieces that I found interesting during my visit.

Towards the beginning of the visit, there was the gallery of kings. This contains heads of statues of the kings of Israel made in the thirteenth century, which were held at Notre Dame de Paris until the French revolution. The statues were beheaded during the revolution because the revolutionaries mistakenly thought they depicted the kings of France, and the heads are now housed at the Cluny museum. 

Next, one can see excellent examples of Medieval stained-glass windows that were originally housed in the Sainte Chapelle, but which were removed following the nineteenth century restoration of the church. It is a wonderful opportunity to see the windows up close. They are right next to statues of the apostles that were damaged during the French revolution and not restored to the Sainte Chapelle because they were deemed too damaged.

Something that is, I suppose, quite common in art from around the world but which I find to be especially prevalent in Medieval art is the tendency to depict historical or biblical figures in ways that are heavily influenced by one's own contemporary surroundings. One example that struck me as rather odd and a bit funny was the picture I included of St. James the elder dressed as a late fifteenth century pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Another example of this is a painting of Jesus freeing prisoners that looks remarkably more like fifteenth century Brussels than first century Palestine. 

Sacred art from the Middle Ages also can take the form of icons or carvings inside of a small cabinet-like structure which opens out with side panels that are themselves depictions of biblical scenes. I include one such image. 

Finally, no discussion of Medieval art would be complete without the tapestries. Tapestries are images made with wool and woven together using a loom. They were common throughout the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and France in the Middle Ages. 

At the Cluny museum, the tapestries can take the form of sacred art (such as a long and elaborate depiction of the live of St. Stephen which is on display towards the end of the museum visit), or they can take the form of depictions of every day activities or mythical stories. 

An example of the former would be the picture of the tapestry called The Wine Harvest which is simply a picture of medieval peasants harvesting their grapes and them processing them. 

Probably the most famous example of a medieval tapestry at the Cluny museum is that called The Lady and the Unicorn. It is part of a set of six tapestries, five of which depict the five senses. The sixth is titled My Sole Desire, and it is significantly more mysterious. It was woven at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and they were only rediscovered in the nineteenth century. The Cluny has done extensive restoration work, and they are in wonderful condition now. 

The tapestry titled My Sole Desire, supposed to depict a sixth sense has stumped art historians and critics for centuries in terms of its meaning. Some take it to mean that the lady sets aside the jewels (her desire) in a rejection of the pleasures aroused by the five senses. Some take it to be an expression of courtly love. But nevertheless, it remains a mystery."

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

Mass Offered For Seminarians on September 1, 2025

A Mass was offered today for all seminarians that they will grow in holiness and lead us all in love. Every month we have a Mass offered for this intention. As our seminarians will be the future shepherds and our children are the future flock, it seemed a beautiful way for the children to help. 

We have been having Masses offered monthly since 2013. Recently the Church of St Thomas the Apostle in West Hartford, Connecticut (home Church for the first Children's Rosary) received a new priest. He was ordained in June of 2025. He has been a wonderful addition to our Church and a beautiful example of holiness to the parishioners and especially to the young people. He attended our July meeting of the Children's Rosary and even placed a rose before the statue of Our Blessed Mother. 

He thanked us for the Masses that were celebrated during his time as a seminarian and assured us that he benefited from them. 

Children's Rosary Meets on the Feast of the Assumption in Montreux, Switzerland

 

The Children's Rosary at the Parish in Montreux: Paroisse Catholique Romaine du Sacré-Cœur de Montreux shared pictures from their August 15 meeting. The children gathered on the Feast of the Assumption in front of the Blessed Sacrament to pray the Children's Rosary. The group leader share the picture above from their meeting.

Visit to St. Germain des Prés and the Literary Cafés in Paris

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 month of July and August 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 another fine afternoon, a group from the language institute went for another excursion in Paris. This time it was to visit the church of St. Germain des Prés and some literary cafés, such as Les Deux Magots, which was the location where many coffees were drunk by the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, important philosophical figures in twentieth century existentialism and Marxism. 

I included a picture of St. Germain with the Deux Magots directly in front.

We visited the church first, so I will start with that. St. Germain des Pres is a very important Parisian church mostly because it is one of the oldest churches in the city. 

An abbey was founded on the site in the sixth century by Childebert I, son of Clovis, first king of the Franks. The church was later destroyed by the Vikings and then rebuilt in the tenth century. It was an important center for education, housing many early manuscripts of great value. You might recall the reference to the medieval monasteries as being great centers of learning in the last post. The church was updated with some Gothic features in the eleventh century. And throughout the early modern period it continued to be a place of scholarship, holding some of the most important manuscripts in France. In perhaps a sign of its great intellectual merit, the church is the resting place of Rene Descartes, perhaps one of the most famous French philosophers of all time.

During the French revolution, part of the old abbey was used as a prison for revolutionary prisoners. After a particularly fiery speech by Georges Danton in 1792 in which he called for the death of those not wishing to pledge allegiance to the revolutionary government, many prisoners held inside were summarily executed. The church was badly damaged, and after the revolution, it was restored to the Church but in a severely deteriorated state, needing significant repairs. 

The church is not particularly impressive when one approaches it on the outside. It is mostly made of stone, but the bell tower that is visible is quite important, being the only one of three to survive to the present day; it was built in the tenth century.

 

Once one goes inside, one is struck by a strong palette of color, mostly blues, greens, and reds. The murals on the inside were painted in a neoclassical style in the nineteenth century and were recently renovated. Thus, it is really quite a bright interior. 

Off to the side is the Chapel of St. Symphorien, a very simple chapel that is about the same age as the bell tower. It houses the tomb of St. Germain. I have included the picture. 

It is quite a historically rich church located in an increasingly upscale part of Paris. The guide explained to us that in the past half century, many of the cafes and bookstores have been replaced with Louis Vuitton and Rolex stores. 

After visiting the church, we walked across the plaza to the Deux Magots, which I mentioned at the beginning of the dispatch. The cafe dates from the mid-nineteenth century. Magots literally refers to "figurines from the Far East," and if you go inside there are indeed two figurines mounted on the wall from the far east. These are the magots. Throughout the early nineteenth century, the cafe was not just frequented by Sartre and de Beauvoir, but also by literary and artistic figures like Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Pablo Picasso, and Albert Camus. It is still open and a very popular tourist destination.

After this, we walked a bit more through the neighborhood. We stopped by the Café Procope. This is a much older institution, having been founded in 1686. Its coffee was drunk by more than one notable patron, including in the eighteenth century by Voltaire, Jean de la Fontaine, and other authors of the Encyclopedia, the great project of the French enlightenment. A little later, it admitted through its doors Benjamin Franklin (who spent considerable time drumming up French support for the American revolution in Paris), Danton, Marat, Robespierre (all important figures in the French revolution), Napoleon Bonaparte, Honoré de Balzac, and Victor Hugo (the last two of which are, of course, giants of nineteenth century French literature). This place is also still open today and bears pictures of its famous customers. 

Lastly, we walked through the Jardin du Luxembourg. This is a grand French garden that houses the old Luxembourg palace, a building built by Marie de' Medicis to resemble the Pitti Palace in Florence after the death of her husband, Henry IV. There is also the Medici Fountain, a very pretty stone water feature that dates from 1620. 

Later, King Louis Philippe had many statues built around the garden of notable women in French history, including Marie de' Medicis. 

Part of the garden is built in a French style, imitating the lavish details and rigid lines of the Baroque era; some of it is built in an English style, imitating the looser, wilder styles of the Romantic period. 

After this, the tour ended, and frankly, I think most of us were happy for it. The temperatures at that point were quite elevated in Paris, and walking across vast stretches of open area with little tree cover was less agreeable than it might have been on another sort of day. 

Nevertheless, it was a splendid experience to be able to witness yet more majestic French buildings and gardens.

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

Mass Offered on August 25, 2025 for the Members of the Children's Rosary

A Mass was offered today for all the members of the Children's Rosary and all who help the Children's Rosary. The Mass was celebrated in Altamont, New York. We continue to have a Mass said for this intention on the twenty-fifth of each month. The Eucharist is such a powerful gift from Our Lord that when we wanted to extend thanksgiving to all of you, we knew of no better way to express gratitude. May Our Lord's love be poured down on all of you through the powerful sacrifice of the Holy Mass. 

The two pictures above are from our Children's Rosary group at Holy Rosary Parish, Warispura, Faisalbad Pakistan. The new group began in March of 2025. Group leader Riba Jamshaid is shown above wearing the Children's Rosary stole. She wrote today that she is witnessing her own faith growing and that of the group through the prayers at the meetings.

Procession Led by Members of the Children's Rosary in Switzerland

The Children's Rosary at the Parish in Montreux: Paroisse Catholique Romaine du Sacré-Cœur de Montreux shared pictures from their July meeting where they processed a statue of Our Lady into the Church before praying the Rosary. The children took turns lighting candles and placing flowers before the altar.