The long love story between Mary and France

The Virgin Mary has been honored in France since the first centuries. Very often, Mary has also shown her compassion during the turbulent history of this country. In each region, the chapels, the basilicas and the cathedrals bear witness to the countless prayers she has brought to her Son and answered. Pope Pius XI wrote this about the place of Mary in France, in his beautiful 1922 apostolic letter Galliam Ecclesiae filiam:

"According to an ancient adage, there is no doubt that the kingdom of France has been called the "kingdom of Mary", and rightly so. For from the earliest centuries of the Church to the present day, Irenaeus and Eucherius of Lyons, Hilary of Poitiers, Anselm - who went to England from France as archbishop - , Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis de Sales, and many other holy doctors have celebrated Mary and helped to promote and increase throughout France the love of the Virgin Mother of God. In Paris, at the famous Sorbonne University, it is historically proven that as early as the 13th century, the Virgin was proclaimed ‘conceived without sin’.

The immense number of faithful who flock from distant places every year, even in our time, to the shrines of Mary, clearly shows what devotion to the Mother of God can achieve among the people, and several times a year the basilica of Lourdes, however vast it may be, seems unable to contain the innumerable crowds of pilgrims.

The Virgin Mother, who is the treasurer of all God's graces, seemed, through many apparitions, to approve and confirm the devotion of the French people. Moreover, for a long time, the principal and the leaders of the nation took pride in affirming and defending this devotion to the Virgin. Converted to the true faith of Christ, Clovis hastened, on the ruins of a Druidic temple, to lay the foundations of the church of Notre-Dame de Paris, which his son Childebert completed.

Finally, Louis XIII consecrated the kingdom of France to Mary and ordered that each year, on the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, solemn functions be celebrated in all the dioceses of France; and these solemn ceremonies, as we know, continue to take place each year."

Pope Pius XI, apostolic letter Galliam Ecclesiae filiam primogenitam, March 2, 1922

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