As every year since the 13th century, the parish of Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre organizes its traditional pilgrimage on Easter Monday in honor of the Precious Blood, two drops of which are kept in the Basilica of Saint Stephen, a copy of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem.
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It is a pilgrimage that has been repeated every Easter Monday for more than 700 years in Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre in lower Berry (diocese of Bourges), since two drops of the Precious Blood were brought back by Cardinal Eudes de Châteauroux , papal legate, in 1257, on his return from the Crusades. Close to King Saint Louis, he was an ardent preacher of the humanity of Christ and of his real presence in the Eucharist.
Revamped in 2021 to comply with the health rules then in force, the Easter Monday pilgrimage resumes this year in the ancestral format: the mass begins in the basilica (at 10:30 a.m.) then the assembly goes in procession through the streets to the field fair where the liturgy of the Word takes place, proclaimed to all. The procession then returns to its starting point, for the Eucharistic part and the veneration of the so-called miraculous relics, brought out for the occasion. The day ends with Vespers and the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
A copy of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem
« The setting chosen for the precious relics was the collegiate church of Neuvy, built in the image of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem two centuries earlier, at the request of Lord Eudes de Déols, on his return from pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the 11th century.explains Mr Gérard Guillaume, president of the association of Friends of the Basilica of Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre. The Precious Blood came to remind the faithful that Jesus was true God but also true man, and that the divinity of Jesus surpassed the virtues of the saints, at a time when the relics of saints were particularly venerated. ».
A small jewel of Romanesque art, the church is adorned with a rotunda twenty-two meters in diameter, sixteen meters high, on three levels with an ambulatory, and supported by eleven columns. Listed as a Historic Monument in 1847, the church was restored and transformed by Viollet-le-Duc, who topped the rotunda with an eastern dome, but which was removed in 1923 due to its weight. Neuvy seems to have always been a place of pilgrimage: the departure of the Berrichon knights on pilgrimage to Jerusalem was celebrated there. Then the basilica offered Christians a place similar to the one they could not reach in the Holy Land. The city is also on the way to Saint Jacques de Compostela.
The unusual detail of the name “Sepulchre”
Unusual detail: the “h” in the Sepulcher of Neuvy is not a spelling error, but the desire of the canons in the Middle Ages to underline the splendor of the place: “Sepulchre” is made up of “sepulchre”, and the Latin adjective “pulcher”, which means beautiful. This is how UNESCO, when it classified the Ways of Saint Jacques as a world heritage site in 1998, included the basilica of Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre on the list of monuments registered under the Ways.
“The town hall, the parish, the Friends of the Basilica, as well as the Neuvy sur les Chemins association, work together to promote this heritage, to adapt the agendas to the liturgical calendar. The pilgrimage in honor of the Precious Blood has only been prevented twice since the 13th century: during the French Revolution, and in 2020 because of Covid-19”. On Monday, April 18, the pilgrimage will be presided over by Cardinal Barbarin, a native of the country, in the presence of Mgr Jérôme Beau, Archbishop of Bourges, and many priests of the diocese and of the congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart to which the parish priest belongs. of the parish, Father Pierre-Célestin, originally from Cameroon. The Knights of the Holy Sepulcher will accompany this beautiful event.
Contact: [email protected]. Such.
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