Why make this pilgrimage
Most people who look for this pilgrimage are not looking for a place so much as an answer. You may believe, more or less, that God loves the world, and be less sure that He loves you. Or your faith may have gone dutiful and dry, and your picture of God may have become mostly a ledger.
A Sacred Heart pilgrimage goes to the places where the Church learned to speak of Christ's love as a heart, in order to receive that love and to return it. It asks for very little movement and a willingness to be still: Mass, confession, and unhurried time before the Blessed Sacrament.
THE JOURNEY
The Heart of Jesus in France: Paray-le-Monial and Montmartre
- Where
- France
- Length
- About five or six days
- Status
- Under consideration
This journey would have two poles and very few moves. It would begin with two or three unhurried nights in Paray-le-Monial, the small Burgundian town where St. Margaret Mary Alacoque reported apparitions of Christ between 1673 and 1675, and where the four places of the sanctuary stand within a short walk of one another. It would then travel to Paris and end on Montmartre, at the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur, where the Blessed Sacrament has been adored day and night since 1 August 1885. The order moves from the place where the devotion took its modern form to the place where it is kept without ceasing, so that the quiet of Paray would be carried into the night watch above the city. What would make it this pilgrimage is the time left open before the Eucharist, not the number of stops.
The route, and why each place belongs
- 1
Paray-le-Monial: the Basilica of the Sacred Heart
Why it belongs
Paray-le-Monial is the home of the devotion in its modern form, and the Romanesque basilica, begun by the monks of Cluny, is the first of the sanctuary's four places.
What you would do there
The pilgrim would arrive, settle into a small and mostly level town, and begin in the basilica with prayer and, where the schedule permits, Mass. Nothing here is spectacular; the first day would be given to slowing down.
- 2
Paray-le-Monial: the Chapel of the Apparitions
Why it belongs
This is the chapel of the Visitation monastery where St. Margaret Mary, a Visitation nun, reported the apparitions of Christ. They are private revelation, which the Church has received with great favor, and Pius XII taught that the devotion itself does not depend on them.
What you would do there
The pilgrim would pray in the chapel and at the relics of St. Margaret Mary, kept in a reliquary containing a wax effigy of the saint together with most of her bones. The time here would be silent rather than guided.
- 3
Paray-le-Monial: the Chapel of La Colombière and the Chapel of St. John
Why it belongs
St. Claude La Colombière was the Jesuit confessor who discerned St. Margaret Mary's experience, told her to write it down and first promoted it; he died at Paray in 1682. His chapel and the Chapel of St. John complete the sanctuary's four places.
What you would do there
The pilgrim would pray at the relics of St. Claude in the chapel built in 1930, then return across town to the rhythm of the sanctuary: confession, which the sanctuary offers to pilgrims, and long stretches of silent adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. An act of consecration to the Sacred Heart could be made here, as a group or alone.
- 4
Paris: the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur, Montmartre
Why it belongs
Building of the basilica began in 1875, and adoration of the Eucharist has continued there day and night since 1 August 1885. It is a sanctuary of perpetual adoration and the second pole of this pilgrimage.
What you would do there
The pilgrim would climb the hill, by the steps or the funicular, and pray in a nave where no photographs are taken and where Benedictine Sisters lead the liturgy. Those who wish could register in advance with the basilica's guesthouse, stay there, and keep an hour of the night watch before the Blessed Sacrament after the doors close to visitors.
Prayer and the sacraments
Mass would be sought at the sanctuary in Paray-le-Monial and at Montmartre where the schedule permits; clergy arrangements are confirmed for each departure. Confession would be available through the sanctuary at Paray where confessors are available, and each day would hold open time for silent adoration; a holy hour could be kept together on one evening by those who wish.
Pilgrim’s Time
Pilgrim's Time would be the larger part of this journey, not an interval in it. At Paray it would be left free for returning alone to a chapel, for confession, or for walking between the four places without a program; in Paris, the afternoon before the night watch would be kept clear for rest.
Pilgrim Pace
Paray-le-Monial is gentle on the body: a small, mostly level town whose chapels stand within a short walk of one another, with most of the time spent seated or kneeling in prayer. Montmartre is the exception. The basilica stands on the highest hill in Paris and is reached by long flights of steps or by the funicular, a night of adoration means broken sleep, and the day of travel between Burgundy and Paris would be the one long transfer.
How Pilgrim Pace worksIf you can stay longer
Pilgrims with more time could continue to Lisieux, the town of St. Thérèse, whose confidence in the heart of Christ Pope Francis sets within this devotion. Her Carmel and basilica pair naturally with Paray on a French route, though Lisieux is not itself a Sacred Heart shrine.
Other ways to make this pilgrimage
- A First Friday or Solemnity stay at Paray-le-Monial. The same stay could be planned around a first Friday or the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart, a movable feast, with the sanctuary's own program verified for the year.
- The French saints' road. Paray-le-Monial could be joined to Ars (St. John Vianney), Nevers (St. Bernadette) and Lisieux (St. Thérèse), asking in each place how that saint understood the love of Christ.
- A quiet hour in Rome. A pilgrim already in Rome could add a visit for prayer to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at Castro Pretorio, beside Termini station.
No dated departures are currently announced. This is a journey Bold Pilgrim is considering, described so you can picture it. Dates, priest, Gateway Airport and price are published on a departure itself, and only when confirmed.
Who it may be for
It suits pilgrims who want depth over distance: people returning to confession after a long time, those who are grieving or worn out and need to hear 'Come to me, all you who labor' (Matthew 11:28) somewhere quiet, Catholics who already keep the First Fridays or belong to a Sacred Heart parish, and priests, since the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart is, in Benedict XVI's words, 'a day traditionally devoted to prayer for the sanctification of the clergy.' Engaged and newly married couples often make a night of adoration at Montmartre.
It asks for a willingness to be still. A pilgrim who wants a full program of famous sights may find Paray too quiet on its own, which is why it is usually joined to other French shrines. No pilgrimage can promise an experience of God's love. This one offers the place, the sacraments and the time.
- Catholics who want to know the love of Christ personally, not only as a doctrine
- Pilgrims returning to confession or to the Church after time away
- Those who are grieving, exhausted or carrying a hard image of God
- Members of Sacred Heart parishes and prayer groups
- Priests and seminarians, for whom the solemnity is a day of prayer for priestly holiness
- Engaged and married couples drawn to adoration
- Pilgrims who prefer silence and one or two bases to a crowded itinerary
A spiritual purpose has no Pilgrim Pace rating; the actual itinerary determines the pace. The places typically involved are gentle on the body: Paray-le-Monial is a small, mostly level town whose chapels stand within a short walk of one another, and most of the time is spent seated or kneeling in prayer. Montmartre is the exception. The basilica stands on the highest hill in Paris and is reached by long flights of steps or by the funicular, and a night of adoration means broken sleep.
UNDERSTANDING THIS PILGRIMAGE
A Sacred Heart pilgrimage is a Catholic journey centered on the love of Jesus Christ under the sign of His pierced heart. Its home is Paray-le-Monial in Burgundy, where St. Margaret Mary Alacoque reported apparitions of Christ between 1673 and 1675, and it often continues to the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur on Montmartre in Paris, where the Blessed Sacrament has been adored day and night since 1885. What pilgrims do there is simple: Mass, confession, and unhurried time before the Eucharist.
What the Church means by the Sacred Heart
The Sacred Heart is not a symbol detached from a person. The Church adores the heart of Jesus because it is the human heart of God the Son, united to His divine Person; the Catechism speaks of 'the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation' (CCC 478). Pope Francis put the same point plainly in Dilexit Nos (2024): 'our worship is directed solely to the living Christ,' and the heart should never be pictured apart from Him.
The scriptural root is the Passion. St. John records that a soldier opened Christ's side with a lance, 'and at once blood and water flowed out' (John 19:34). Christians have prayed before that wound since the first centuries, and medieval and later saints, among them St. Gertrude and St. John Eudes, wrote about the heart behind it long before Paray-le-Monial.
This matters for how a pilgrim reads the story. Pius XII taught in Haurietis Aquas (1956) that the devotion did not originate in a private revelation and that what St. Margaret Mary received 'brought nothing new into Catholic doctrine.' The apparitions belong to private revelation, which the Church has received with great favor: she was canonized in 1920, and Pius XI wrote in 1928 that Christ 'manifested Himself' to her. The devotion itself rests on Scripture, Tradition and the liturgy, and it has its own solemnity in the Church's calendar.
What happened at Paray-le-Monial
Margaret Mary Alacoque entered the Visitation monastery at Paray-le-Monial in 1671. Between the end of December 1673 and June 1675 she reported a series of apparitions in which Christ showed her His heart and said, in the words quoted by Pope Francis, 'This is the heart that so loved human beings that it has spared nothing.' The sanctuary today sums up the message in three movements: a declaration of love, a complaint that this love meets indifference, and a request that it be returned.
The requests were concrete: frequent Communion, Communion on the first Friday of each month, an hour of prayer on Thursday night in company with Christ in Gethsemane, and a feast in honor of His heart. Her Jesuit confessor, St. Claude La Colombière, judged her experience credible, told her to write it down, and became the first to promote it. Rome first granted the feast in 1765, Pius IX extended it to the universal Church in 1856, and Leo XIII consecrated the human race to the Sacred Heart in 1899.
The sanctuary's rector has warned against a reading fixed on blood and suffering, and against turning the heart into a political banner. The image, he says, is fire: 'It's not the heart of Jesus that bleeds, it's the heart of Jesus that burns.'
Why someone is drawn to it
Most people who look for this pilgrimage are not looking for a place so much as an answer. They believe, more or less, that God loves the world; they are less sure that He loves them. Others carry a faith that has gone dutiful and dry, or a picture of God that is mostly a ledger. The devotion spread in seventeenth-century France as a response to Jansenism, a rigorism that kept people from Communion, and it still speaks to anyone who has learned to keep God at a careful distance.
The Church has also returned to it recently: Pope Francis gave the Sacred Heart an encyclical, Dilexit Nos, in 2024, and in June 2026 the bishops of the United States consecrated the country to the Sacred Heart, with relics of St. Margaret Mary brought from Paray for the occasion.
Questions pilgrims ask
What is a Sacred Heart pilgrimage?
A Sacred Heart pilgrimage is a journey made to honor the love of Jesus Christ under the sign of His heart and to answer it. Most go to Paray-le-Monial in Burgundy, where St. Margaret Mary Alacoque reported apparitions of Christ between 1673 and 1675, and many add the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur in Paris, where the Eucharist has been adored day and night since 1885. The program is Mass, confession and adoration more than sightseeing. The Catechism describes the Sacred Heart as 'pierced by our sins and for our salvation' (CCC 478).
Where do pilgrims go to honor the Sacred Heart?
The principal shrine is the Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart at Paray-le-Monial, France: the Chapel of the Apparitions in the Visitation monastery, the Romanesque basilica, the Chapel of St. John and the Chapel of La Colombière. The second is the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur on Montmartre in Paris, a sanctuary of perpetual Eucharistic adoration. Bold Pilgrim has no dated departure to either at present.
Are the apparitions to St. Margaret Mary approved, and do Catholics have to believe in them?
The Church has received them with great favor, and no one is obliged to believe them. They are private revelation. Margaret Mary was canonized in 1920, Pius XI wrote that Christ 'manifested Himself' to her, and Pope Francis retold the apparitions in Dilexit Nos (2024). But Pius XII taught in Haurietis Aquas that the devotion did not originate in private revelation and that hers 'brought nothing new into Catholic doctrine.' What every Catholic is asked to hold is what the liturgy celebrates on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart: the love of Christ, true God and true man.
What are the First Fridays?
The First Fridays are the custom of receiving Holy Communion on the first Friday of each month in honor of the Sacred Heart. The practice comes from the requests St. Margaret Mary reported at Paray-le-Monial. Pius XI wrote in 1928 that it was established 'at the desire of Christ Jesus,' and Pope Francis wrote in 2024 that it spread when many people had stopped receiving Communion and that it can still do good today. St. Margaret Mary also reported promises attached to the practice, the best known to nine consecutive First Fridays; they belong to her private revelation.
How is the Sacred Heart devotion related to Divine Mercy?
They are two devotions to the one heart of Christ. The Sacred Heart took its modern form in France in the 1670s through St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and centers on Christ's love, reparation and the Eucharist. Divine Mercy came through St. Faustina Kowalska in Poland in the 1930s and centers on trust, with its own image, chaplet and feast. Canonizing her in 2000, St. John Paul II said that 'Divine Mercy reaches human beings through the heart of Christ crucified.' Neither replaces the other, and a pilgrim may hold either or both.
Where is St. Margaret Mary Alacoque buried, and is her body incorrupt?
Her relics are in the Chapel of the Apparitions at the Visitation monastery in Paray-le-Monial. What pilgrims see is a reliquary containing a wax effigy of the saint together with most of her bones; it is not an intact, incorrupt body.
Full answer: Can I see St. Margaret Mary's body at Paray-le-Monial?
Can I spend a night in adoration at Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre?
Yes. After the basilica closes to visitors in the evening, the adoration kept there day and night since 1885 is carried on by people who have registered in advance with the basilica's guesthouse and are staying there.
Full answer: Can I spend a night in adoration at Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre?
When is the best time to make a Sacred Heart pilgrimage?
The sanctuary at Paray-le-Monial receives pilgrims all year, but three moments carry particular weight there: the first Friday of each month; the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, a movable feast kept on a Friday in the weeks after Pentecost, most often in June; and the memorial of St. Margaret Mary on 16 October. June is traditionally the month of the Sacred Heart. Check the sanctuary's own calendar and the liturgical calendar for the year you travel.
