how the Sacred Heart maintains 140 years of adoration day and night

She had not climbed the hill to the basilica since 2019. Florence Berret, 56, manager of a travel agency, specially came with her husband, François, 66, from Val-d’Ajol (Vosges) to participate in the nighttime adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at the Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre, in Paris.

Thus joining all those who, in this year 2025, wanted to make their contribution to the longevity record experienced in this world-famous place of prayer. Adoration has been perpetual there, day and night, since August 1, 1885, that is to say one hundred and forty years! Neither during the two world wars nor during confinement, the faithful were never lacking.

A faithful heart to heart

“Adoration allows us to say “I love you” in silence to the Creator,” explains Francis. “It’s a love meeting that we don’t just come for ourselves. I present to Christ, without judging them, those who do not know him or even refuse him. I pray that he welcomes them,” continues his wife. Both spent two nights at the Sacré-Cœur hostel, which provides pilgrims with 170 beds for a modest fee.

The first night, they took turns from three to four in the morning. “The second, we registered from 11 p.m. to midnight, it was easier, just after the 10 p.m. mass,” explains this volunteer woman. “The silence that reigns at night in the choir of the basilica, barely disturbed by the noise of the city which reaches us from outside, is extraordinary,” adds Fabrice, 48, a finance executive in Caen (Calvados), who prayed from four to five in the morning.

Florence has a regular practice of adoration: “Every Monday from 5 to 7 p.m. at Notre-Dame-de-Combeauté, in Val-d’Ajol, we organize a time of adoration with a retired priest in which a dozen faithful take part. And on Thursday, we meet from 6 to 7 p.m. in a neighboring town, in Saint-Valbert (Haute-Saône), to pray before the Blessed Sacrament,” she says. A fidelity which does not surprise Father Stéphane Esclef, rector of the Sacré-Cœur basilica: “Adoration is like a freeze frame of this moment when the priest shows Christ present on the altar through the host. It is a prayer in silence, it is not a concert before the Blessed Sacrament! The goal is to be in heart-to-heart prayer with Christ.”