By Jay Sorgi • Posted June 6, 2025

The Holy Spirit has led so many people to come to AbbeyFest each year where they find Christ present in Mass, eucharistic adoration, and powerful contemporary Christian music, that it has led organizers to find a new and larger venue for 2025.

AbbeyFest is moving its 11th edition of the powerful Catholic faith and music festival to the 170-acre National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown. The festival is slated to run Saturday, Sept. 20.

As for the past decade, the festival will again this year attract many of the top contemporary Catholic and Christian musicians from across America, including Matt Maher, Seph Schleuter, Brother Isaiah, Mac Powell, and Sarah Kroger.

It also includes a late afternoon Mass, celebrated last year by Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez, and evening Adoration and benediction.

The National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa provides a much larger footprint for pilgrims to experience the day-long festival than its previous home at Daylesford Abbey in Paoli, where the Norbertine Fathers had offered their grounds and hospitality for AbbeyFest-goers so positively since 2014.

“We are so appreciative to where we’ve been with the Norbertines over the years. We were super grateful for the Abbey for all 10 years of blessing,” said Martha Wilbur, one of the heads of the production team with AbbeyFest Ministries. While they faced a Jan. 30 date for making a decision on a new venue and had already made plans to secure it, a meeting at the Doylestown shrine had been scheduled for that same date.

The Pauline priests at the shrine were so welcoming and so open, and God just brought it together,” Wilbur said, adding that a priest had approached them during their search process to ask about bringing the festival to the shrine.

“We already had other plans, (but) he looked at us with a smile that was almost like, ‘Okay, you will see, right?’” she said.

“Later on, we ended up going back to them and said, ‘I think you were right. Can you give us the opportunity and have a meeting?’ The door has been wide open. They have been so welcoming.”

Organizers emphasized the Norbertines’ welcome, but recognized that more people than the Abbey’s maximum capacity of 5,000 want to attend this annual premier Catholic music festival in the Northeast United States.

“The Abbey just isn’t big enough anymore,” said Ed Grady from the AbbeyFest planning team.

“Last year we had the most people we’ve ever had. We were busting at the seams in terms of everything, space on the field, parking, bathrooms. This is probably three times the size of the Abbey, so we knew it was going to eventually happen.”

The move to the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa offers more room for thousands of spectators, 150 vendors, the long list of food trucks, and enough space for more musical stages in future years.

It also creates opportunities for people to encounter particular points of faith like the Candel Chapel, Our Lady of Fatima Outdoor Chapel, Rosary Garden, outdoor Stations of the Cross and numerous statues of saints.

“There’s that big statue of St. John Paul II with his arms out, and I think about his appeal to youth,” said Sarah Christmyer, longtime organizing team member and wife of the late Mark Christmyer who was one of the team founders for the festival.

“When I heard that this was going to be at Our Lady of Czestochowa, and it was actually going to work, I thought of that statue and I thought of his spirit. What a wonderful saint to be presiding over this new phase of AbbeyFest.”

The festival location creates a slight increase in traveling distance from Philadelphia, but its closer proximity to New Jersey and New York City will attract a larger audience for a powerful day of faith, musical worship and family-friendly fun.

“From the very beginning, the desire for AbbeyFest Ministries is to really evangelize and to bring people into a closer relationship with Christ,” said David Wilbur, another production team leader.

“What started as something so small (a one-time concert with Matt Maher), we have had over 30,000 individuals attend this event. When you think about that number, that’s a really large number for … this area. We’ve had over 100,000 people that have visited the online portal and seen different recordings and different aspects of the event.”

“I walk through the crowd a lot during the day, and I just see people have such joy and happiness. It’s a little bit of Heaven, and families are just happy,” Grady said. “It’s just a wonderful day.”

AbbeyFest will be announcing the full lineup in coming weeks, with Marisel from New Jersey as their 2025 emerging artist honoring Mark Christmyer.

Organizers are looking to increase sponsorships and the number of volunteers to match the growing size of the festival. To contribute time, talent or treasure, click the above links or here to contact AbbeyFest.