Bridget Spinks joins Australian pilgrims on their preparatory road to Madrid via a renowned French centre of spirituality.
Michael Burke of the parish of Rockingham, Rebecca Thomas of Glendalough and Robin Rosario of Mirrabooka were among a group of 30 Australians to visit Paray-le-Monial, in France, as part of their pre-World Youth Day pilgrimage.
Christ famously appeared to St Margaret Mary Alacoque in this small picturesque city more than 300 years ago, revealing to her his Sacred Heart: a “heart full of love for all mankind”. Devotion to the Sacred Heart has become one of the most well-known and popular of all Catholic pious practices.
The Paray-le-Monial gathering, from 12-15 August, was organised by one of the newest movements in the Catholic Church, the Emmanuel Community.The chaplain for the Emmanuel Community’s Australian contingent, Fr Peter-Damien McKinley, celebrated private masses for the pilgrims on 9 and 10 August – the feast days of the martyrs St Edith Stein and St Lawrence respectively. He encouraged them to be attentive to God’s call in their lives.
A mini-pilgrimage was made to to the Paray-le-Monial cemetery where Pierre Goursat, who founded the Emmanuel Community in 1972, was buried in 1991.
Fr Peter-Damien, who has been a member of the community since 1989, gave a personal testimony and introduction to the founder.
Goursat had a great devotion to Our Lady and to Christ through Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and to the mass, Fr Peter-Damien said, emphasising there was never a plan for him to found the community on his own strength; instead, it grew out of a Parisian charismatic prayer group.
From a small advertisement in a local newspaper, Goursat, then a film critic, met a young medical student, Martine Laffitte and began a school of prayer.
Their prayer group of less than 10 people became the catalyst for the Emmanuel Community, quickly swelling to about 500 members.
Soon offshoot prayer groups were meeting regularly in Vezelay, a site linked to the veneration of St Mary Magdalene, who washed the feet of Jesus.
“It was the work of the Holy Spirit; over time; it evolved,” said Fr Peter-Damian.
Goursat developed the conviction he needed to move spiritually from the feet of Jesus to the heart of Jesus, he said.
The meetings or “International Sessions” of the movement moved to Paray-le-Monial in 1975 where members would gather in the garden behind the Romanesque Basilica of the Sacred Heart.
Fr Peter-Damien said that in Goursat’s later life the teachings he gave on adoration were very simple: “The Lord is there. He is looking at you. Just look at him in the holy host, the sacred host. He is looking at you, look back and enter into a dialogue. He is looking at you. Just look back. All he wants to say to you in this moment you are there before him is I love you.”
Celebrating the memory of Goursat, the pilgrim group gathered to sing around his grave and thank God for his life of service to the church.
The trip to the cemetery was a special moment for those Australians who have studied at the Emmanuel School of Mission in Rome in previous years.
Several pilgrims also visited the grave of Clement Giraud who, having died unexpectedly of natural causes while studying at ESM in February 2009, was buried with the permission of his family in the Paray-le-Monial cemetery.
In 1985 the sanctuary of Paray-le-Monial was entrusted to the Emmanuel Community.
The Vatican recognised the community’s statutes in 1992 and the community as a Public Association of Christ’s Faithful in June 2009.