Those of you who have read the story of Notre-Dame de Bellefontaine, written with the greatest possible realism and without obsequious concessions, have been able to see for yourselves the strangeness of the constant resurgences of the sanctuary and its pilgrimage.

Believers see it as a sign of Divine Providence intervention, while skeptics attribute it all to a series of chance occurrences and coincidences.

At a time when ease is sought everywhere and all constraints are rejected, we must recognize that we are witnessing a resurgence of spirituality, which we had a tendency, at a certain point, to want to deny.

Very often, especially among young people, there is a feeling of this need for the mystique of God and a return to faith in religion.

Perhaps the Pilgrimage of Our Lady of Bellefontaine, in its new beginning, will be able to respond to these aspirations.

This is the first grace we ask of Christ through the intercession of Our Lady, seeking Mary's forgiveness for having too frequently neglected her during these last years.

René PIERRE

March 1991