Sainte-Anne-d'Auray is the most important shrine in Brittany and one of the great pilgrimage sites of France. It was born, in the years 1623–1625, from a series of apparitions in which Saint Anne — the mother of the Virgin Mary and, according to the Christian faith, the grandmother of Jesus — manifested herself to a humble labourer of Morbihan, Yvon Nicolazic, asking him to rebuild a chapel fallen into ruin and buried beneath his fields.
The narrative has the sobriety of the great peasant apparitions: nocturnal lights near a fountain, an elderly and luminous woman who introduces herself — "I am Anne, the mother of Mary" — then, in the night of 7–8 March 1625, the discovery of an old wooden statue buried at the place called Bocenno, exactly where local memory placed a vanished ancient oratory. The hamlet's name already said it: Keranna, in Breton, means "Anne's village".
After the inquiry of Sébastien de Rosmadec, bishop of Vannes — who authorised worship there and had the first Mass celebrated on 26 July 1625 — the place became within a few years the first Breton pilgrimage. It lived through the royal fervour of the 17th century, the destruction of the Revolution — when the primitive statue was burned in 1793 — then the 19th-century revival, with the crowning of the statues in 1868, the building of a vast basilica, and Saint Anne honoured as patroness of Brittany. Still today, its great Pardon of 26 July gathers tens of thousands of pilgrims, and John Paul II came to pray there on 20 September 1996.
This article first presents the figure of Saint Anne — what Scripture and Tradition say of her — then the history of Nicolazic's apparitions, the inquiry and ecclesial recognition, the destiny of the shrine from the Revolution to our day, and finally the family spirituality that makes Sainte-Anne-d'Auray so distinctive.
Saint Anne, "grandmother of God": the figure honoured
Before being a place, Sainte-Anne-d'Auray is a name: that of the mother of the Virgin. One cannot understand Breton devotion without first saying who Saint Anne is and why the Church has honoured her since the earliest centuries.
What Scripture says — and does not say
The four canonical Gospels never name the parents of the Virgin Mary. The New Testament knows the Mother of Jesus, but it keeps silent about her own birth and about those who brought her into the world[1]. This silence is nothing surprising: the evangelists write to proclaim Christ, not to draw up a civil record of his kinship.
The Church has therefore never presented the existence of Anne and Joachim as an article of faith resting on inspired Scripture. She venerates them by virtue of Tradition — that living transmission of Christian memory which, alongside the holy Books, also carries data received from the earliest centuries[2]. Distinguishing these two registers does not weaken devotion: it places it with exactness.
The Protoevangelium of James and the memory of the early centuries
The oldest source naming Mary's parents is a 2nd-century writing, the Protoevangelium of James. This text, classed among the apocrypha — that is, not received into the canon of inspired Scripture — nevertheless hands on a Palestinian tradition going back to the first half of the second century[3]. There it tells the story of an elderly and childless couple, Joachim and Anne, long tried by sterility, to whom an angel finally announces the birth of a daughter: Mary.
"Anne, Anne, the Lord has heard your prayer: you shall conceive and you shall bear, and your offspring shall be spoken of throughout the whole world." — Words of the angel to Anne, Protoevangelium of James, IV, 1 (2nd century)[4]
That a narrative is apocryphal does not mean it is false in all its details: the Church set these texts aside from the canon without thereby condemning all the memory they conveyed. The names of Anne (from the Hebrew Hannah, "grace") and of Joachim imposed themselves very early, and the Fathers of the Church as well as the liturgy retained them[5]. The modernist reflex that would reject a priori this tradition on the sole ground that it is ancient and non-scriptural misunderstands the way the Church has always kept memory of her origins.
An ancient cult, from the East to Brittany
The veneration of Saint Anne is attested in the East as early as the 6th century — a church was dedicated to her in Constantinople under Emperor Justinian — before reaching the West over the course of the Middle Ages[6]. The feast of Saint Anne on 26 July gradually became universal; since the liturgical reform of 1969, it has been celebrated jointly with Saint Joachim, under the title of the "parents of the Virgin Mary"[7].
In Brittany, this devotion is exceptionally deep-rooted, to the point that an ancient legend makes Saint Anne a Breton princess. The Auray country traces her cult back to the very origins of the evangelisation of Armorica, in the 7th and 8th centuries[8]. It is precisely this anteriority that Nicolazic's tradition would reawaken: Saint Anne did not "land" in 1625 — she returned to a land that already knew her.
Why Brittany loves Saint Anne so much
Breton attachment to Saint Anne rests on a profound spiritual intuition: honouring the grandmother of Christ means honouring the chain of generations through which faith is handed down. In a rural society where family, land and the memory of forebears structured all of life, "good grandmother Saint Anne" — "Mamm-gozh ar Vretoned", the grandmother of the Bretons — embodied the holiness of the home, the patience of the humble and the fruitfulness obtained through prayer[9]. This family spirituality, as we shall see, remains the heart of Sainte-Anne-d'Auray's message.
Keranna: "Anne's village" before the apparitions
A vanished chapel
Long before the apparitions, the hamlet where Nicolazic lived already bore the name of Keranna — "Anne's village". Local tradition placed there the memory of a very ancient chapel dedicated to Saint Anne, fallen into ruin, whose very location had been forgotten[10]. The detail matters for what follows: when Saint Anne would ask Nicolazic to "rebuild" her chapel, she would not be asking him to invent a cult, but to raise up a forgotten holy place.
Yvon Nicolazic, a peasant of Pluneret
Yvon Nicolazic was born on 3 April 1591 in the parish of Pluneret, in the hamlet of Keranna[11]. He was a well-off peasant, married, with no surviving child, whom his contemporaries agreed in describing as of simple and deep piety: a man of prayer, charitable, a stranger to all exaltation. This profile — that of a level-headed witness, devoid of unbridled religious imagination — would weigh heavily in the credit the ecclesiastical authority granted his account.
The apparitions of 1623–1625
The phenomena span nearly two years. Tradition, fixed by the first 17th-century inquiries and taken up by the diocese of Vannes, distinguishes three moments: the lights of 1623, the speaking apparition of 1624, and the discovery of the statue in 1625.
The first lights (1623)
From the summer of 1623, Nicolazic and a few close to him observed inexplicable luminous phenomena, notably near a fountain and in his cowshed: a sudden brightness, sometimes the shape of a torch or a candle moving and going out without leaving a trace[12]. These signs, at first disconcerting, recurred enough for the labourer to speak of them, prudently, to those around him.
"I am Anne, mother of Mary" (25 July 1624)
The turning point came in the night of 25–26 July 1624. An elderly woman, clothed in light, manifested herself to Nicolazic and named herself:
"I am Anne, the mother of Mary. God wills that I be honoured here." — Words of Saint Anne to Yvon Nicolazic, according to the tradition of Sainte-Anne-d'Auray, 25 July 1624[13]
According to that same tradition, she asks him to have the chapel once dedicated to her at Bocenno rebuilt as soon as possible, and to take care of it.
The request is precise: not a message of menace or penance, as at La Salette, but a request for the restoration of a shrine and a cult. Nicolazic hesitates, fears ridicule, delays obeying — a trait of humility the investigators would retain as a pledge of sincerity.
The discovery of the statue (night of 7–8 March 1625)
The decisive night is that of 7–8 March 1625. Towards eleven o'clock in the evening, while Nicolazic recites his rosary, a great light fills his house; Saint Anne orders him to go and fetch his neighbours and to follow a torch that will lead them to a buried image[14]. The procession, led by the glow, reaches the field of Bocenno; there, according to the account, the torch rises and sinks three times before vanishing into the ground. They dig — and exhume an old wooden statue depicting Saint Anne, still recognisable despite the long burial.
"In the night of 7–8 March 1625, Yvon Nicolazic, peasant of the hamlet of Keranna in Pluneret, is guided by the glow of a candle to his field of Bocenno." — Becedia, "Miraculous discovery of the statue of Saint Anne"[15]
The discovery of an ancient object of worship at the very spot designated by the apparition gives the phenomenon a verifiable dimension that sets it apart from many purely interior visions. It is this material anchoring — a statue, a field, witnesses — that would decide what followed.
- Summer 1623The first lights
Unexplained luminous phenomena near a fountain and in Nicolazic's cowshed, at Keranna: sudden brightness, a torch moving and going out without trace.
- Night of 25–26 July 1624'I am Anne, mother of Mary'
Saint Anne names herself and asks for the rebuilding of her vanished chapel. Nicolazic, fearing ridicule, delays obeying.
- Night of 7–8 March 1625The statue of Bocenno
Guided by a torch, Nicolazic and his neighbours exhume in the field of Bocenno an ancient wooden statue of Saint Anne.
- 26 July 1625The first Mass
The bishop of Vannes Sébastien de Rosmadec authorises the first official Mass at the place of the discovery, on Saint Anne's feast day.
- 4 July 1628The first chapel
Blessing of the first chapel built on the designated spot. The Breton pilgrimage is born.
The inquiry and the Church's recognition
Unlike many popular marvels, Sainte-Anne-d'Auray benefited very early from a serious ecclesiastical examination, conducted by the diocesan bishop himself.
Sébastien de Rosmadec, bishop of Vannes
Sébastien de Rosmadec, bishop of Vannes, did not merely record the rumour. He had inquiries made into Nicolazic's morality, into the agreement of the testimonies and into the age of the recovered statue. Convinced of the seriousness of the facts, he authorised, on 26 July 1625 itself — Saint Anne's feast day — the first official Mass on the place of the discovery[16]. This swift authorisation, yet grounded in verification, illustrates the Church's positive prudence: neither credulity, nor rejection on principle.
The first chapel (1625–1628)
The concourse of pilgrims was immediate. A provisional chapel first sheltered the statue, then a lasting building was undertaken, blessed on 4 July 1628[17]. Within a few years, the modest field of Bocenno became a centre of prayer radiating over all Brittany.
The Carmelites, guardians of the shrine
The keeping of the shrine was entrusted to the Carmelite Fathers, who would animate it for nearly two centuries, until the Revolution[18]. To them are owed the growth of the pilgrimage, the laying-out of the site and, in 1662, the building of a Scala Sancta — a holy staircase the pilgrims climbed on their knees, in memory of the staircase of Pilate's praetorium in Rome[19].
From the great Breton pilgrimage to the Revolution
Royal fervour: Anne of Austria and Louis XIII (1639)
The shrine's success soon reached the court. Queen Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII, bore the saint's name and nourished a personal devotion to her. After twenty-three years of marriage without an heir, the birth of the dauphin — the future Louis XIV, nicknamed Dieudonné (God-given) — was attributed to a Marian grace and regarded as a sign[20]. In thanksgiving, King Louis XIII offered the shrine in 1639 a relic presented as coming from Saint Anne's arm, kept in a monstrance-reliquary in the shape of an ermine, emblem of Brittany[21].
This royal gesture seals Sainte-Anne-d'Auray's status as a Breton national shrine, at the crossroads of popular piety and the devotion of the great.
The burned statue (1793) and the saved fragment
The French Revolution struck the shrine hard. In 1793, the primitive statue — the very one Nicolazic had exhumed — was removed and burned at Vannes, in the wave of dechristianisation then sweeping over Brittany[22]. A decree forbade pilgrimages.
But the story does not end there. A witness managed to snatch from the fire a charred fragment of the statue, in the shape of a sculpted head. This precious remainder is today enshrined in the pedestal of the gilded statue of Saint Anne — the work of the sculptor Barrême of Ancenis (1825) — venerated in the reredos of the altar of devotion, in the south transept arm of the basilica[23]. Thus, of the original cult, a tangible relic remains: the present statue does not efface the old one, it carries it within itself.
The shrine in the 19th and 20th centuries
The restoration of worship in the 19th century went hand in hand with a monumental transformation that gave the shrine its present face.
The pontifical crowning (30 September 1868)
On 30 September 1868, Mgr Jean-Marie Bécel, bishop of Vannes, proceeded to the solemn crowning of the statues of the Virgin and of Saint Anne, in the name of Pope Pius IX, in the presence of the bishops of Brittany and of some sixty thousand pilgrims[24]. The pontifical crowning — an honour Rome grants only to the most venerated images — officially consecrated Sainte-Anne-d'Auray's rank among the great shrines of Christendom.
Édouard Deperthes's basilica (1865–1872)
The influx of pilgrims made the old church too narrow. From 1865 to 1872, the present basilica was raised, entrusted to the architect Édouard Deperthes — one of the rebuilders of the Paris Hôtel de Ville. In neo-Renaissance style, dominated by a tall bell tower crowned with a statue of Saint Anne, it was consecrated in 1877[25]. In 1886, a monumental Cross of Jerusalem was planted at the heart of the esplanade[26].
Saint Anne, patroness of Brittany
Breton piety has for centuries honoured Saint Anne as patroness of Brittany, alongside Saint Yves: the Catholic Encyclopedia already attested it in 1913 — "St. Anne is the patroness of Brittany"[27]. This title of popular devotion, predating the First World War, says what the great Pardon of 26 July celebrates each year: the "grandmother of the Bretons" watches over her people.
The Breton war memorial
The 1914–1918 war bled Brittany as few regions of France. In memory of its tens of thousands of dead, a vast memorial monument was raised at Sainte-Anne-d'Auray: the foundation stone was laid on 1 October 1922, the whole inaugurated on 24 July 1932[28]. This granite cloister, one of the most imposing Great War memorials in France, makes the shrine a place of Breton national mourning as much as of pilgrimage.
The Scala Sancta and the monumental ensemble
Over the centuries, the shrine acquired a coherent ensemble: the basilica, the Carmelites' Scala Sancta (1662, moved stone by stone in 1870), the miraculous fountain linked to the first apparitions, the treasury and its reliquary, Nicolazic's historic house[29]. The whole composes a veritable "sacred village" where the memory of the origins remains legible in stone.
The great Pardon and the spirituality of Sainte-Anne-d'Auray
The Pardon of 26 July
The "Pardon" is the Breton form of pilgrimage: a religious festival blending procession, confession, solemn Mass and popular devotion. The great Pardon of Sainte-Anne, celebrated on 26 July, is Brittany's foremost by attendance; each year it gathers tens of thousands of pilgrims, often in traditional costume, around the statue carried in procession and the fountain[30]. Beyond the main date, the shrine welcomes pilgrimages throughout the year.
A spirituality of family and transmission
Sainte-Anne-d'Auray's distinctiveness among the great French shrines lies in its tutelary figure. Where Lourdes, La Salette and Pontmain are Marian shrines, Sainte-Anne-d'Auray honours Christ's grandmother — and thus carries a spirituality of family, of the transmission of the faith, of grandparents and of fruitfulness.
Here Saint Anne is prayed to for families, for childless couples, for forebears and for the perseverance of generations in the faith. This deeply human dimension meets Catholic doctrine on the family as "domestic Church", the first place of believing transmission[31]. At a time when Christian memory is weakening, Keranna's message — rebuild the chapel of your fathers — keeps a strange timeliness.
John Paul II at Sainte-Anne-d'Auray (20 September 1996)
On 20 September 1996, Pope John Paul II came to pray at Sainte-Anne-d'Auray, before a crowd estimated at one hundred and fifty thousand people[32]. The visit was part of his journey to France for the fifteenth centenary of the baptism of Clovis, celebrated at Reims two days later. At Sainte-Anne, the Pope entrusted to the Bretons the fidelity of their forebears and exhorted them to hand on the faith received.
"We turn to Saint Anne, who appeared to Yves Nicolazic: 'Do not be afraid… God wills that I be honoured here.'" — John Paul II, homily at Sainte-Anne-d'Auray, 20 September 1996[33]
Four centuries after Nicolazic, the shrine remains what it was from the beginning: not a monument of the past, but a living place where the "grandmother of the Bretons" keeps calling for the rebuilding of what threatens to fall into ruin — first of all in hearts.
To go further
- Our Lady of Lourdes (1858) — the great Marian apparition of the Pyrenees.
- Our Lady of La Salette (1846) — the penitential apparition of the Alps.
- Our Lady of Pontmain (1871) — the silent apparition of Mayenne.
- Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal (1830) — the rue du Bac in Paris.
- Our Lady of Fátima (1917) — the great Portuguese pilgrimage.
- The baptism of Clovis — at the origins of Christian France, whose centenary John Paul II was celebrating in 1996.
Notes and References
The canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) do not name the parents of the Virgin Mary. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Anne (mère de Marie)". The Church therefore grounds their veneration not in inspired Scripture but in Tradition.
1On the interplay of Scripture and Tradition as two modes of transmitting the one deposit of faith, cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 80–83; Second Vatican Council, dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum, ch. II.
2The Protoevangelium of James, an apocryphal writing dated to the first half of the 2nd century, is the oldest source naming Joachim and Anne and recounting Mary's birth. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Anne (mère de Marie)" and "Protévangile de Jacques".
3Protoevangelium of James, ch. IV, 1 (2nd century): angelic announcement to Anne after long sterility. Non-canonical apocryphal text, quoted here as a witness of ancient tradition, not as inspired Scripture.
4The first name Anne comes from the Hebrew Hannah, "grace" or "favour". The names of Anne and Joachim, handed down by ancient tradition, were retained by Christian liturgy and iconography. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Anne (mère de Marie)".
5The cult of Saint Anne is attested in the East from the 6th century (church in Constantinople under Justinian) before spreading in the West in the Middle Ages. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Anne (mère de Marie)".
6Saint Anne's feast is fixed on 26 July; since the reform of the Roman calendar (1969), it has been celebrated jointly with Saint Joachim under the title of the parents of the Virgin Mary. Cf. Roman liturgical calendar.
7Breton tradition traces the cult of Saint Anne, in the Auray country, back to the first evangelisation of Armorica (7th–8th centuries). Cf. Paroisses Sud Bretagne (paroisses-sud-bretagne.fr), "Sainte Anne"; Villes Sanctuaires en France, Sainte-Anne-d'Auray page.
8In Breton, Saint Anne is called "Mamm-gozh ar Vretoned", the grandmother of the Bretons. Cf. Breton tradition; Becedia (bcd.bzh).
9Nicolazic's hamlet was called Keranna, "Anne's village" in Breton, and local memory placed there an ancient chapel dedicated to Saint Anne, fallen into ruin. Cf. Becedia, "Découverte miraculeuse de la statue de sainte Anne"; French Wikipedia, "Sainte-Anne-d'Auray".
10Yvon (Yves) Nicolazic, born 3 April 1591 at Pluneret (hamlet of Keranna), died 13 May 1645 at Sainte-Anne-d'Auray. Breton peasant; a first local inquiry with a view to his beatification was opened on 27 November 1937 (draft prepared from 1935 to 1937); the cause, taken up again after the pilgrimage of John Paul II of 20 September 1996, led to a dossier reopened at the diocese of Vannes in September 1997, then to the filing of the definitive dossier at the Vatican at the end of 2000. Cf. English Wikipedia, "Yves Nicolazic"; French Wikipedia, "Yvon Nicolazic".
11First luminous phenomena from the summer of 1623 (brightness, torch or candle moving and going out without trace), near a fountain and in Nicolazic's cowshed. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Yves Nicolazic"; Becedia.
12The brief formula quoted is the one taken up by John Paul II himself in his homily of 20 September 1996 (see [^jp2-parole]); local tradition joins to it the request to rebuild the Bocenno chapel as soon as possible and to take care of it. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Yvon Nicolazic" (which hands down a fuller version of these words); Paroisses Sud Bretagne, "Sainte Anne"; Villes Sanctuaires en France.
13Discovery of the statue in the night of 7–8 March 1625: light in Nicolazic's house towards 11 p.m., order to go and fetch the neighbours, walk guided by a torch to the field of Bocenno, exhumation of an ancient wooden statue. Cf. Diocese of Vannes, "Découverte de la statue de sainte Anne par Yvon Nicolazic le 7 mars 1625"; Becedia.
14Becedia / Bretagne Culture Diversité (bcd.bzh), "Découverte miraculeuse de la statue de sainte Anne". Quotation of the date and circumstances of the discovery (night of 7–8 March 1625, field of Bocenno).
15Sébastien de Rosmadec, bishop of Vannes, had inquiries made into Nicolazic and the statue, then authorised the first official Mass on 26 July 1625, Saint Anne's feast day. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Yves Nicolazic" and "Sainte-Anne-d'Auray".
16The first lasting chapel was blessed on 4 July 1628 on the spot of the discovery. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Sanctuaire Sainte-Anne de Sainte-Anne-d'Auray".
17The keeping of the shrine was entrusted to the Carmelite Fathers, who animated it from the shrine's first decades until the Revolution. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Sainte-Anne-d'Auray".
18The Scala Sancta (holy staircase) was built by the Carmelites in 1662, in memory of the staircase of Pilate's praetorium venerated in Rome; it was moved stone by stone in 1870. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Sainte-Anne-d'Auray".
19Queen Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII, was devoted to her patron saint. The birth of the dauphin (future Louis XIV, Dieudonné), after twenty-three years of marriage, was regarded as a grace. Cf. French Wikipedia; Villes Sanctuaires en France.
20In 1639, King Louis XIII offered the shrine a relic presented as coming from Saint Anne's arm, in thanksgiving for the dauphin's birth; it is kept in an ermine-shaped monstrance-reliquary. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Sanctuaire Sainte-Anne de Sainte-Anne-d'Auray".
21In 1793, the primitive statue exhumed by Nicolazic was removed from the shrine and burned at Vannes during the revolutionary dechristianisation; a decree forbade pilgrimages. Cf. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), "Sainte Anne d'Auray": "the miraculous statue of St. Anne was burned at Vannes in 1793" (newadvent.org/cathen/01539a.htm).
22A charred fragment of the primitive statue (in the shape of a sculpted head) was saved from the fire and is today enshrined in the pedestal of the gilded statue of Saint Anne, the work of the sculptor Barrême of Ancenis (1825), placed in the reredos of the altar of devotion in the south transept arm. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Sanctuaire Sainte-Anne de Sainte-Anne-d'Auray".
23On 30 September 1868, Mgr Jean-Marie Bécel, bishop of Vannes, crowned the statues of the Virgin and of Saint Anne in the name of Pius IX, in the presence of the bishops of Brittany and of some 60,000 pilgrims. Cf. French Wikipedia; Séné parish (sene-paroisse.fr).
24The present basilica, in neo-Renaissance style, was built from 1865 to 1872 by the architect Édouard Deperthes (one of the rebuilders of the Paris Hôtel de Ville); raised to the rank of minor basilica by brief of 22 May 1874 of Pius IX, it was consecrated on 8 August 1877. Cf. English Wikipedia, "Sainte-Anne-d'Auray"; French Wikipedia, "Sanctuaire de Sainte-Anne-d'Auray"; Baie de Quiberon; EWTN.
25A monumental Cross of Jerusalem was planted on the esplanade in 1886. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Sainte-Anne-d'Auray".
26The title of patroness of Brittany is attested as early as 1913: Catholic Encyclopedia, "St. Anne": "St. Anne is the patroness of Brittany" (newadvent.org/cathen/01538a.htm). No pontifical act of proclamation dated 26 July 1914 could be established (neither in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis nor on vatican.va); the only sources asserting it (Ar Gedour, Boulevard Voltaire) do not cite the act.
27The Breton Great War memorial: foundation stone laid on 1 October 1922, the whole inaugurated on 24 July 1932. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Sainte-Anne-d'Auray".
28The shrine ensemble comprises the basilica, the Scala Sancta, the miraculous fountain, the treasury and its reliquary, as well as Nicolazic's historic house. Cf. Villes Sanctuaires en France, Sainte-Anne-d'Auray page.
29The great Pardon of Sainte-Anne, celebrated on 26 July, is Brittany's foremost pilgrimage and gathers tens of thousands of pilgrims each year. Cf. Villes Sanctuaires en France, "Pèlerinage"; Becedia.
30On the family as "domestic Church" and first place of transmission of the faith, cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 1655–1658 and 2204–2206; Vatican II, Lumen gentium, no. 11.
31Visit of Pope John Paul II to Sainte-Anne-d'Auray on 20 September 1996, before a crowd estimated at some 150,000 people, during his journey to France for the 15th centenary of the baptism of Clovis. Cf. French Wikipedia, "Sainte-Anne-d'Auray"; archives of the apostolic journey.
32Words of the pontifical homily of 20 September 1996 (no. 3), as John Paul II himself recalls them in his address to the Bretons of the diocese of Vannes, 15 April 1997 (cf. vatican.va; L'Osservatore Romano, English ed., 2 October 1996). Ignispedia's English translation.
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