logo english transparent 500px
  • About US
    • Who we are
    • Our Spirituality
    • History
      • Cardinal Lavigerie
      • Mother Marie Salomé
      • Our Lady of Africa
      • Our first sisters
    • Past & Present
      • Bicentenary of the birth of Caridnal Lavigerie
      • Our Lady of Africa family
      • General Chapter
      • 150th Anniversary
    • Contacts
  • Mission
    • Women with women
    • Education
    • Pastoral work
    • Justice & Peace
    • Health & social work
    • Our Apostolic Orientations
      • Interreligious and Intercultural Encounter -Dialogue
      • Migration, refugees, and internally displaced persons
      • Modern slavery and human trafficking
      • Care of the environment
    • Our Projects
  • Vocation
    • Missionary vocation
    • Join us
    • Stages of formation
    • Forms of belonging
  • Agenda
  • Resources
    • Extraordinary life stories
    • Prayers
    • Library
    • Jubilarians
    • Entered into eternal life
    • Links
  • French
Menu
  • About US
    • Who we are
    • Our Spirituality
    • History
      • Cardinal Lavigerie
      • Mother Marie Salomé
      • Our Lady of Africa
      • Our first sisters
    • Past & Present
      • Bicentenary of the birth of Caridnal Lavigerie
      • Our Lady of Africa family
      • General Chapter
      • 150th Anniversary
    • Contacts
  • Mission
    • Women with women
    • Education
    • Pastoral work
    • Justice & Peace
    • Health & social work
    • Our Apostolic Orientations
      • Interreligious and Intercultural Encounter -Dialogue
      • Migration, refugees, and internally displaced persons
      • Modern slavery and human trafficking
      • Care of the environment
    • Our Projects
  • Vocation
    • Missionary vocation
    • Join us
    • Stages of formation
    • Forms of belonging
  • Agenda
  • Resources
    • Extraordinary life stories
    • Prayers
    • Library
    • Jubilarians
    • Entered into eternal life
    • Links
  • French
Search
Close this search box.
Youtube

Mother Marie-Salomé and Breton Spirituality

 

Over the centuries, Breton Spirituality has venerated Breton personalities known for their exemplary life from a Christian point of view. Few of them have been recognized as saints by the Church’s canonization procedure, but they have been honoured by the people, their very existence not always being historically attested. From 2021 another statuette has been added to this demonstration of ancient popular spirituality, that of our Venerable Mother Marie Salomé, who was carried on the pilgrimage by Danielle Burthier and 3 lay people from the Lavigerie family.

An article by Danielle will follow on Sharing Trenta Aprile with details of this experience.

 

According to a late literary and hagiographic construction forged from the eleventh century, the seven founding saints are traditionally reputed to have founded the seven bishoprics that existed in the late Middle Ages. Because of their precedence to any canonical procedure, these saints have not been officially recognized by the Catholic Church but are celebrated each year in the Tro Breiz (which in Breton means “tour of Brittany”). This is a Catholic pilgrimage that links the towns of the seven founding saints of Brittany. The other Bretons are saints by the vox populi. Most of these saints would have been forgotten if the persistence of the cult of the

fountains had not linked their memory to the beneficent virtue of the waters or if tradition had not made them miracle workers or healers. Legendary tales have also contributed to perpetuate their memory.

In this spiritual tradition the parish of Plouguerneau, which gave rise to a hundred ordinations of priests between 1803 and 1964, preserves the Little Saints, polychrome wooden statuettes mounted on a wooden pole. They date from the 17th century and are carried during processions.

 

Canon Paul Peyron describes this tradition in 1912 as follows: “The saints (…) are pretty wooden statuettes one foot high Each one is supported by a pedestal fitted into a wooden pole, which allows one person to carry the saint. The Sunday which precedes the procession, during the high mass, the honour of carrying the saints is put on auction. When the harvest is threatened, Saint Fiacre and Saint Isidore are the most in demand, in times of epidemic it is Saint Sebastian or Saint Roch. Most often, it is our patron saint that we want to honour, and this privilege is allowed through an offering made to the church in this original form.”

 

According to tradition, the custom of the Little Saints dates back to a plague epidemic which raged in the Country around 1640. The vow made on this occasion included three annual processions following different routes: the day of Ascension, the Sunday following this feast and Whit Monday. Since 1996, the procession of the Little Saints has found a new lease of life and takes place on August 15. After mass at 10:30 a.m. on the front lawn of the Church of Notre-Dame du Grouanec, a march starts towards the Saint-Claude chapel, passes through Sainte-Anne, Saint-Laurent, the medieval site of Iliz Coz and arrives in Saint-Michel around 5 p.m.

Eglise Plougerneau hier et aujourd'hui
Saint Pol ND de Kreisker - Les sept saints du Tro Breiz
Burthier Danielle
Iliz Koz
  • August 26, 2021
  • 8:41 am
  • Actualities, Mother Marie Salomé, Spirituality
  • Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, MSOLA, White Sisters
Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp
RELATED POSTS
16th June 2025 with Cardinal Lavigerie
June 15, 2025
15th June 2025 with Cardinal Lavigerie
June 14, 2025
14th June 2025 with Cardinal Lavigerie
June 13, 2025
13th June 2025 with Cardinal Lavigerie
June 12, 2025
Jubilee of Consacrated Life in Arua, Uganda
June 12, 2025
12th June 2025 with Cardinal Lavigerie
June 11, 2025
Copyright 2022 - All rights reserved
Privacy Policy
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}
Facebook