By Caroline de Sury
OSV News
PARIS — The traditional “Lenten Conferences” have resumed at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris this Lenten season, for the first time since the fire of April 15, 2019.
Lent 2025 is also marked by record participation in Ash Wednesday Masses in France and a record number of catechumens preparing to enter the Catholic Church on Easter.
Notre Dame lectures, a Lenten hallmark, have a long history dating back to the French monarchy, but in contemporary times were renewed and systematized in 1834 by a young lay Catholic student, Frederic Ozanam, beatified in 1997 by St. John Paul II in Notre Dame during World Youth Day in Paris.
Ozanam established the tradition of the lectures along with Father Henri Lacordaire, whose Lenten preaching became an instant classic in Paris.
To this day, Lenten Notre Dame lectures are a major event on the French cultural calendar.
Every Sunday until Easter, the faithful can attend them in person, but they are also broadcast live on France Culture, a branch of French public radio, and Catholic television channel KTO.
In the Jubilee Year, six people — priests, religious and laity — will take turns leading people on the theme “Our Lady, Queen of Peace, from the Magnificat to the Apocalypse.”