From http://www.notredamedesvictoires.com/home_anglais.htm
the website of the Basilica of Notre Dame des Victoires, in Paris (slightly edited to correct translation anomalies):
Father Charles Eléonore Dufriche Desgenettes, the parish priest of “Notre Dame des Victoires”, was about to lose hope, when a divine inspiration made him consecrate his parish to Mary’s Immaculate Heart. It [the apparition] happened in 1836, on the 3rd of December, a Saturday. Next week he constituted the Archconfraternity for the conversion of sinners.
From that moment, the pilgrims and believers began to flock. They came to thank the Virgin, covering the walls of the church with ex-voto.
Among the numerous pilgrims, the most famous were the Ratisbonne brothers, St Jean Bosco, Anne-Marie Javouhey, François Libermann, Emmanuel d’Alzon, Hermann Cohen, St Theophane Venard and particularly Thérèse Martin (Ste Thérèse de l’Enfant Jésus), who recovered from a serious disease during a novena of masses to Our Lady of Victories at her intention.
[Also, for us especially of the Anglican Usage: John Henry Newman, who went specifically to thank the Virgin for his conversion and the prayers of the faithful there which had assisted it.]
[And more, from the Archconfraternity section]:
The dedication of our shrine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Refuge of sinners began in 1836 when Father Charles Desgenettes received from the Holy Virgin a special grace: internal locutions saying twice, during and after the Mass he celebrated:
“Consecrate your parish to the Holy
and Immaculate Heart of Mary”
This event took place on the 3rd of december 1836, a Saturday.
Having very few parishioners attending to the Mass, the Abbe Desgenettes thought he had failed in his ministery and wanted to resign his functions in Our Lady of Victories when this message from Heaven came to him.
With the agreement of the Archbishop of Paris, Father Desgenettes consecrated his parish to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the evening of the Sunday 11th of december.
500 Persons were attending to the celebration when, in the morning, less than 40 persons where present to the Mass ! He constituted that same day the Association of the Holy and Immaculate Heart of Mary for the conversion of sinners, an association which became archconfraternity in 1838 by the decision of Pope Gregory the XVIth.
A large part of the 37000 ex-voto covering the walls of our shrine remember these years of grace when Father Charles Desgenettes was in charge of the parish (1832-1860) but the thanksgivings of pilgrims and parishioners to the Holy Virgin have never ceased, neither the prayer of the Archconfraternity for the sinners.
Nowadays, the Archconfraternity counts more than 1.628.000 individual inscriptions (counted up from 1836) and more than 20 000 christian communities (parishes, congregations, schools etc.) throughout the world.
The engagement of our members is simple (for more precisions see our statutes) :
An individual inscription / or with the family (parents + children) in the
Families Holy Therese (little Therese) / or with the catholic community, is taken on one of the three different registers of the Archconfraternity ;
- Every day, the member says at least one « Hail Mary » for the sinners ;
- If possible, the member attends to a Mass in the honour of the Holy Virgin on the first saturday of each month, praying at the intention of the Pope and for the sinners, in a spirit of reparation for all the hurts made to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
- That same “First Saturday” he praises the Lord with the local confraternity, during a “Marian Hour” presenting to Our Lady of Victories the prayer intentions for conversions and spiritual healings sent to our association.
+++
In a fuller account of the consecration of the parish to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we read that the service went rather dully until Fr. Desgenettes, somewhat in desperation, began to chant the Litany of Loretto (in Latin, I presume); the crowd responded coldly until he got to “Refuge of Sinners...”, at which point the crowd became animated and there were loud exclamations, such as “save us”, “help us”, “O Mother..” and the like.
The discussion of visitors above is somewhat laconic in view of other reports that in fact Ven. Francis Liebermann and his companions based their activities at NDV when embarking on their new society which was to eventually merge with, and reconstitute, the Holy Ghost Fathers (for ALL of whose former superiors one prays today), and it was the custom of the seminarians of the Foreign Missions Seminary to come to NDV to consecrate themselves to the Virgin before starting out to what was not uncommonly martyrdom in Asia; we know St Theophane Venard did this, as it is recorded in his biographies.
St. Therese went to NDV to pray for her early entry to the Carmel.
NDV was in many ways the spritual powerhouse of mid-XIXth century Paris. And it all started 172 years ago today, on 3 December 1836.