Sermon at Chartres Cathedral
Monday in the Octave of Pentecost
Cathedral of Our Lady
Chartres, France
25 May 2026
Acts 10, 34. 42-48
Jn 3, 16-21
Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Your annual days of pilgrimage have reached their destination: the altar of Christ’s Sacrifice in this historic and magnificent House of God dedicated to Christ, God the Son Incarnate, and His Virgin Mother. Going on pilgrimage to a holy place, a most ancient and efficacious devotion, you have left your ordinary life to meet Our Lord in an extraordinary place. By doing so, you have uncovered anew the extraordinary nature of your ordinary life because you are alive in Christ and, in accord with His promise to the Apostles at the moment of His Ascension to the right hand of the Father, you have received the grace of the Holy Spirit to be His “witnesses … to the end of the earth.”[1] The same sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit Who descended upon the Apostles in the Upper Room was poured forth into the hearts of some three thousand faithful at Pentecost through the ministry of the Apostles.[2] In today’s Epistle, we have heard how, through the ministry of Saint Peter, the Holy Spirit came upon the members of the household of the Gentile Cornelius at Caesarea.[3] Through the same ministry, exercised by the successors of the Apostles, the same gift of the Holy Spirit, from the day of Pentecost all along the Christian centuries, has been poured forth into the hearts of countless faithful, has been poured forth into your hearts, from the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus.
Going on pilgrimage, you have uncovered anew the truth that your days on earth are a pilgrimage to your true and lasting home in Heaven, that the struggle, fatigue, and suffering of your earthly pilgrimage is of eternal good.[4] Let us daily remember the words of Our Lord to Nicodemus in today’s Gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”[5] Pilgrimage brings the grace to embrace with joy the trials of daily life in Christ, offering up “a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.”[6]
Going on pilgrimage to a holy place, you have sought to cooperate more totally and perfectly with the grace of the Holy Spirit dwelling within your soul so that you may fulfill your missionary vocation, your call to be “fellow workers” with Christ in divine truth and love for the salvation of your soul and the souls of your brothers and sisters who are, like you, called to be alive in Christ through the profession of faith and the reception of the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit in Baptism and Confirmation.[7] Fittingly your pilgrimage has included the encounter with Christ in the Sacrament of Penance for the forgiveness of your sins and the renewal of the baptismal grace of the Holy Spirit in your hearts and now concludes with your participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice of Our Lord by which He makes sacramentally present His Sacrifice on Calvary and its incomparable fruit: His true Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, the Bread of Heaven which nourishes the life of the Holy Spirit within us along the days of our earthly pilgrimage to our lasting home in Heaven.
The Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady, has drawn your hearts to her own Immaculate Heart which is ever perfectly one with the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, her Divine Son. Our Lady, Mother of God and Mother of Divine Grace, knows what our hearts most desire. She knows that for which we most yearn. Especially in moments of weariness, doubt, confusion, and temptation, she draws us to herself, as she did the wine stewards at Cana, and she takes us to her Divine Son, to His Heart, with the firm maternal counsel: “Do whatever he tells you.”[8] She is our unfailing guide in carrying out our mission in the portion of Our Lord’s vineyard which He entrusts into our care. As we, day by day, unite our hearts to her Immaculate Heart, she leads us to Christ so that we, like Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and all the saints, may be His love in the Church, above all in the family, the first cell of the life of the Church.[9] The devotion of pilgrimage is especially powerful in grace for the knowledge and acceptance of our vocation, of God’s plan for us from the moment of our baptism, whether it be in marriage and the family, in the consecrated life, or in the ordained priesthood. The extraordinary nature of your ordinary life is marked especially by the maternal care and guidance of Our Lady.
Saint Joseph, True Spouse of the Virgin Mary and Virginal Father of Jesus, has safeguarded your way of pilgrimage. Throughout our earthly pilgrimage, he safeguards the way along which Our Lady leads us to her Son Who alone is our salvation. He is the Protector of the Church, the Guardian of Sacred Tradition – Sacred Doctrine, Sacred Liturgy, and Sacred Discipline – through which the life of Christ, the grace of the Holy Spirit, is unfailingly transmitted, from Apostolic Time, to us today. Saint Joseph, whose heart is all faithful, generous, and pure, with paternal care for us, especially for our holy death, keeps safe our way in doing whatever Our Lord is asking of us, above all, in responding to our vocation, serving God the Father through the grace of the Holy Spirit flowing into our hearts from the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus.
Saint Joseph, ever faithful, generous, and pure in his virginal love for Our Lady and for us, safeguards our way. In every trial and tribulation, and especially at the moment of our death, we should heed the prophetic instruction of the Pharaoh of Egypt, when the people were dying of famine. He responded to the anguishing people: “Go to Joseph; what he says to you, do.”[10] His words refer to the Patriarch Joseph, prototype of Saint Joseph. Thus, too, the Church in her wisdom, instructs us in our anguish to turn to Saint Joseph, True Spouse of the Virgin Mary and Virginal Father of the Savior: “Go to Joseph” (“Ite ad Ioseph).”
Fidelity, generosity, and purity of heart have their source in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. They have their most perfect human guide in the Immaculate Heart of Mary. They have their most perfect protector in the Purest Heart of Saint Joseph. The glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus, the glorious Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the Purest Heart of Saint Joseph are united in perfect unity through their participation in the divine truth and love of the Most Holy Trinity.
In offering thanksgiving to God for His manifold blessings granted through these days of pilgrimage, I express, in the name of us all, heartfelt gratitude to Philippe Darantière, President of the Notre-Dame de Chrétienté Association, to Étienne Touraille, Director of Pilgrims, to Abbé Jean de Massia, General Chaplain, and to all who have labored so steadfastly and excellently to make possible your pilgrimage rich in grace for you and for the many souls for whom you have prayed during the pilgrimage. I express heartfelt gratitude to His Excellency, Bishop Philip Christory of Chartres for his most warm welcome to this historic and vital diocese. I personally am most grateful for the invitation to celebrate the Solemn Pontifical Mass today.
Through pilgrimage, we give anew our response to any personal spiritual crisis we may experience and to the spiritual crisis of the world and of the Church. We do not give way to discouragement and despair, but, with hearts united to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and under the fatherly care of the Purest Heart of Saint Joseph – thus, resting securely in the Sacred Heart of Jesus – , we, in the words of Saint Paul, fight the good fight, stay the course, and keep the faith,[11] having confidence in the promise of eternal life which Our Lord keeps for “all who have loved his appearing.”[12]
Let us now unite our hearts, one with the Immaculate Heart of Mary and under the care of the Purest Heart of Joseph, to the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus, opened for us in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. As Our Lord nourishes us with His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, let us return to our ordinary life, deeply conscious of its extraordinary nature. The Heavenly Bread, the Sacred Host, sustains us along life’s pilgrimage and brings us to its destiny, our lasting home with God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, in the company of the angels and of the Virgin Mother of God, together with Saint Joseph, and all the saints. Blessed to have made pilgrimage in honor of Our Lord and His Virgin Mother, Our Lady of Chartres, let us pray every day:
“Most Sacred Heart of Jesus have mercy on us. Immaculate Heart of Mary, guide our way. Purest Heart of Joseph, keep safe our way.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke
[1] Acts 1, 8.
[2] Cf. Acts 2, 41.
[3] Cf. Acts 10, 44-48.
[4] Cf. Heb 13, 14.
[5] Jn 3, 16.
[6] Heb 13, 15.
[7] Cf. 3 Jn 8.
[8] Jn 2, 5.
[9] Cf. Sainte Thérèse de l’Enfant Jésus et de la Sainte-Face, “Histoire d’une âme. Manuscrits autobiographiques (Lettre à Sœur Marie du Sacré Cœur, Manuscrit “B”, [2 r°], 8 Septembre 1896),” Œuvres completes (Textes et Dernières Paroles) (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf et Desclée De Brouwer, 1992), p. 226.
[10] Gen 41, 55.
[11] Cf. 2 Tim 4, 7.
[12] 2 Tim 4, 8.