On November 15, the rector of the Sanctuary of Paray-le-Monial, Father Étienne Kern, spoke at the International Colloquium dedicated to Father Mateo Crawley-Boevey, recalling the deep bond that united the apostle of the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart with the Burgundian city where his mission was born.
In his lecture entitled “The Relationship of Father Mateo with Paray-le-Monial and His Role in Promoting the Message of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” Father Kern offered a renewed reading of the Chilean missionary’s spiritual journey and the relevance of his legacy for the contemporary Church.
During his address, the rector emphasized that the founding experience lived by Father Mateo in the Chapel of the Apparitions in August 1907 was “an event of grace and discernment that forever transformed his life and mission.” That episode, he explained, cannot be seen as an isolated fact but rather as “the fruit of a long spiritual maturation, of a journey of suffering, searching, and obedience.” Exhausted after the 1906 Valparaíso earthquake, the young Chilean priest arrived in Paray in a state of deep crisis and left “renewed, strengthened, and resolved to dedicate his entire life to spreading the reign of the Heart of Jesus in families.”
Father Étienne Kern stressed that the illumination of Paray was not an unrooted mystical episode but “the culmination of a wider spiritual and ecclesial process.” Before his arrival in Paray, Crawley had been received in Rome by Pope Saint Pius X, who explicitly encouraged him to devote his life to this apostolate. “Father Mateo understood then that the mission born in his heart was not a personal initiative but a mandate received from the Church,” the rector said. “The institutional dimension precedes the mystical experience: obedience prepares the ground for grace.”
He also noted that the initial silence with which Father Mateo recounted his experience reveals its authenticity. “Like Jacob in Scripture, only with time did he understand what had truly happened. The distance between the event and its narration allowed a deeper spiritual rereading, through which Paray became the interpretative key to his entire life.”
Throughout his life, Father Mateo returned frequently to Paray-le-Monial — from 1914 to 1934 — each time “to return to the source.” Even amid moments of opposition, such as the initial mistrust of certain French bishops, he remained faithful to his mission. “His life shows how the cross always accompanies grace,” said Father Kern, recalling the letters of support from Pope Benedict XV and Cardinal Louis Billot.
Father Kern described Father Mateo as “one of the great voices of the message of Paray-le-Monial in the 20th century.” His intuition — the enthronement of the Sacred Heart in Christian homes — was “a pastoral response inspired by the social and spiritual crises of his time, and it remains today a prophetic call to restore Christ’s place at the heart of family life.”
In the closing part of his address, Father Kern invited everyone to reread Father Mateo’s legacy in light of Pope Francis’ encyclical Dilexit nos: “The Holy Father reminds us that devotion to the Heart of Jesus is not something of the past, but a way to live the Gospel of love in today’s world,” he said.
“From Paray-le-Monial, Father Mateo’s voice still calls us to let Christ reign in our hearts, our families, and our world.”
11/15/2025