Joseph II, Maria Theresa's son, spent his reign trying to turn the monarchy into a rational machine, and one of his measures was to dissolve religious orders he judged useless — those that did not teach, nurse the sick or care for the poor. In 1786 the Paulines were dissolved throughout the monarchy, and the order that had built Šaštín was gone. The church became an ordinary parish church under diocesan priests, and the monastery buildings passed into secular and later military use for most of the next two centuries. The pilgrims came anyway. That is the Šaštín pattern in one line: the institutions keep changing, the walking does not.Jozef II., syn Márie Terézie, sa celú vládu snažil urobiť z monarchie racionálny stroj a jedným z jeho opatrení bolo zrušiť rehole, ktoré považoval za neužitočné — teda tie, čo neučili, neošetrovali chorých a nestarali sa o chudobných. V roku 1786 boli pavlíni zrušení v celej monarchii a rehoľa, ktorá Šaštín postavila, zmizla. Z chrámu sa stal bežný farský kostol pod správou diecéznych kňazov a kláštorné budovy prešli na väčšinu nasledujúcich dvoch storočí do svetského a neskôr vojenského užívania. Pútnici sem chodili ďalej. To je šaštínsky vzorec v jednej vete: inštitúcie sa menia, chodenie nie.
