The association Our Lady of Christendom will celebrate tomorrow, May 12, a preparatory Mass for the traditional French pilgrimage from Chartres to Notre Dame, one of the most important Catholic events linked to traditional liturgy in Europe. The ceremony will take place at 7:30 PM in the Church of the Madeleine, in Paris, and will be presided over by Abbot Jean de Massia, general chaplain of the pilgrimage.
The organizers explained that this celebration seeks to entrust the pilgrimage to the Virgin Mary, spiritually prepare the participants, and unite the faithful in prayer before the start of the march, which will take place from May 23 to 25.
The call comes at a time of notable growth for this historic pilgrimage. Nearly 20,000 pilgrims will participate this year in the 2026 edition, as reported a few weeks ago by Aleteia, also marked by a strong missionary emphasis under the motto: «You will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth».
A pilgrimage that continues to grow among young people
The constant increase in participants has consolidated the Chartres pilgrimage as one of the most striking religious phenomena in current European Catholicism. Far from being reduced to a marginal phenomenon linked solely to liturgical nostalgia, the event continues to attract especially young people and families in a context of deep secularization in Europe.
In fact, approximately half of the pilgrims are under 30 years old, a particularly significant figure amid the crisis of religious practice affecting numerous European countries.
The success of Chartres has also reopened the debate on the evangelizing capacity of liturgical tradition. While for years some sectors presented traditional liturgy as a reality incapable of connecting with new generations, the French pilgrimage seems to show precisely the opposite: thousands of young people find there an experience of faith centered on prayer, sacrifice, doctrine, and the sense of the sacred.
The goal for 2026: return from Chartres as witnesses of Christ
The organizers have wanted to give this year an explicitly missionary focus to the pilgrimage. The intention is not only to offer an intense spiritual experience over three days, but to remind that Christian faith also implies the duty to give public witness to Christ in the midst of the world.
That apostolic dimension permeates much of the message of this edition. The pilgrimage is not presented only as an exercise of private piety, but as a call to strengthen Christian identity in an increasingly de-Christianized Europe.
In that context, the preparatory Mass on the upcoming May 12 serves as spiritual preparation for thousands of faithful who are preparing to walk more than a hundred kilometers in one of the largest public manifestations of traditional Catholicism in Europe.