This year springtime was for us a time of mission. Our first little mission was to an English boarding school in France—Chavagnes International College, near Nantes, where a friend of MH England, whose son attends the school, had invited us to witness and share about our Madonna House life of Nazareth.

While we were there, one Anglo-French family led us on a little pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Louis de Montfort where we renewed our consecration to Jesus through Mary.

Our next little mission took us back to the heart of Paris where we gave a talk about Catherine Doherty and the priesthood to twenty pre-seminarians. We were blessed by the rapt attention these young men from Paris and beyond gave us.

Our last mission was one in which we, in our own way, accompanied the Holy Father into the merciful heart of God. On Saturday night, April 2nd,in our little oratory, in union with many others in Paris, we kept vigil in front of the Blessed Sacrament. When we emerged from the chapel after about two hours of prayer, we heard that the pope had died.

The next day, on the Feast of Divine Mercy, we made a pilgrimage to Osny, just outside of Paris. Osny is the Polish center for the spread of the devotion to the Divine Mercy, a devotion dear to the heart of Pope John Paul II.

About a thousand people were there for a procession with Blessed Faustina’s Divine Mercy image, and for Mass, confession, rosaries, and the Way of the Cross.

At the end of Mass, when they played the pope’s “rap” record over the loud speakers, tears of gratitude and sorrow flowed freely throughout the congregation. How fortunate we were to live this moment of communion with our fellow pilgrims and with the universal Church!

An era in the Church has ended, and a new one has begun. Let us together walk into this new era with joy.