Feast Days of Our Blessed Mother for Every Day of the Year
From
THE WOMAN IN ORBIT
Compiled by Sister Manetta Lamberty, S.C.C.
Copyright 1966
Click on today's date
JUNE
June 1: MEDIATRIX OF ALL GRACE
Father Bernard Francis de Hoyos, SJ. (1711-35), apostle of devotion to the Sacred Heart, described a vision he had which identifies Mary as the mediatrix of All Grace, “I saw the Heart of the Eternal Father in the form of an immense globe of Fire whose infinite grandeur extended over the earth, the heavens, and out beyond the abysses. The rays of light, which spread out, concentrated in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and narrowed until they were received in all their intensity in the most amiable Heart of Our Most Holy Mother Mary. This appeared in the form of a brilliant and beautiful sun, which at once communicated to men and the whole earth, the multitude of lights and rays which it had received. In this mysterious symbol I understood how the Most Loving Heart of Jesus communicated to men the infinitude of gifts and benefits which He receives from the Father and from the Divinity of the Word, by means of the most pure Heart of His Most Holy Mother Mary, which is the aqueduct and instrument by which we derive all good.”
Because of her closeness to, and oneness with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Heart of Mary is most powerful, not by nature but by grace. So pleasing is the Immaculate Heart of Our Sweet Mother to her Divine Son, that He will refuse her nothing.
At the Visitation, merely the voice of Mary’s salutation sounded in the ears of Elizabeth and John was sanctified—Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. All gifts and benefits are channeled to us through the Mediatrix of all Grace, Mary.Power is not an unmixed blessing unless it is tempered and directed by mercy. The Heart of Our Immaculate Mother Mary is not only all powerful by grace; it is likewise all-merciful. “Woman, behold thy son”. She forgives us just as Jesus does, and mirrors in her heart infinite mercy for sinners.The Assumption of Our Lady and her Coronation as Our Queen, gives us further assurance and confidence in the loving protection of her Immaculate Heart, since she is now and forever seated at her Divine Son’s right hand in Heaven, will not forget or forsake the children of her Sorrows—the children committed to her care on Calvary.The glories of Heaven and the praises of all angels and saints of paradise do not distract our Mother’s mind or deafen her Mother-Heart to the misery and pleas of her children on earth, for she is the Virgin Most Faithful. The saints and angels do her bidding and help us because she desires it; she is their Queen and her wishes become a mandate to them.Finally, Mary’s nearness to God increases her power to help us; her mercy toward us, her unflinching faithfulness to come to our aid against the constant incursions of Satan, our own weakness to fall, and the witchery of this empty world binding us to God, all are under Mary’s sway.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 2: OUR LADY OF EDESSA
It is asserted that this image of Mary, placed beneath the gateway of a church, in Asia Minor, spoke to St. Alexis and made known to the people of Edessa the merits of St. Alexis. From there it was removed to Rome, where it is highly honored.The story is that the wealthy Alexis, who parted from his bride on their wedding day, hid himself in a hut for seventeen years, incognito. His family searched for him everywhere. Finally the image of Mary at the shrine of Edessa where the saintly beggar was, spoke to passersby, revealing the holiness of Alexis, calling him “the Man of God”. At the request of relatives, Alexis returned home, where he died a saintly death. Other and numerous miracles took place at Mary’s shrine of Edessa.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 3: OUR LADY OF SASOPOLI
The sanctuary of this Madonna is some 1700 feet above sea level on one of the hills in the range of Mt. Giovi, twelve miles northwest of Florence Italy.As the stories put it, “in ancient times” a little shrine stood on a hill and it contained a tablet depicting the blessed Virgin and the Child. Since the plaque is, according to experts, a work of the Giotto School, it must have been made some time between 1300 and 1490. Giotto was himself in Florence in 1300, 1302, 1307 and 1334, and died in 1336.Many people came to pray at the shrine and among these were two young shepherdesses of the Ricovera family. On July 2, 1490, the two girls were praying at the shrine. As their father was gravely ill, they were imploring the Virgin to restore him to health. They heard a sound and looking around, they saw sitting on a nearby stone a lovely lady with a child in her arms. Before they recovered from their surprise the lady spoke to them. She told them not to be afraid and not to worry, that she was the one to whom they had been praying so fervently, and that she wished to have a church built on that spot in her honor. She asked them to go and bring their father, as she wished to speak to him.The girls told the lady that their father could not come because he was so sick; he could not even get up out of his bed. But she assured them that he was now well again and that they should go and get him. Obeying, the girls hurried to their home and found their father completely recovered. They returned with him to the shrine; the Lady was still sitting on the stone. She told the father of her wish that a church be built on that spot. The man and his daughters spread the story of his recovery and of how the Virgin had appeared, but very few believed them and nothing at all was done about the church. Then on August 15, the feast of the Assumption, when a goodly number were gathered at the shrine, the Virgin appeared for the third time. She told them she was displeased at the delay and demanded that they get busy and build her a church. This time they believed her and started to work. However, since the ground around the stone on which she had appeared seemed too steep to attempt to put a building there, they started to lay the foundation at a place some few hundred feet away. But when the masons arrived for the work the following morning, they found the walls they had laid the day before, were demolished and the stones strewn around. After this happened several times, they decided that the Virgin did not want the church built there, but over on the spot where the stone was. So they bowed to the inevitable and with great labor, leveled off the ground around the stone, and there, erected the church.Since the Virgin had appeared on the stone, and moreover, insisted that the church be erected on that very spot, it was natural the church and the image be called MADONNA DEL SASSO or Sasopoli – OUR LADY OF THE STONE. <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 4: OUR LADY OF THE HILL or MOUNTAIN
The sanctuary of the Sacred Hill at Varese in Lombardy, Italy, is said to have had its origin in a chapel built to commemorate Our Lady’s appearing to Saint Ambrose there during the later fourth-century.The sanctuary grew in popularity, especially after a convent of Augustinian nuns was established in the fifteenth century. The principal shrine is the church of the Immaculate Conception, with chapels of the mysteries of the rosary.Primarily, the “Hill” had been dedicated by the pagan people, to the goddess of victory; but Our Lady, as is her wont, asked that the place be built, or rebuilt into a shrine to honor Her Divine Son and herself.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 5: OUR LADY OF HAUT
The chronicles relate that in the year 1428, Our Lady of Haut, in Hainault, France, restored, that he might receive Holy Baptism, a child to life after it had been dead several days. He lived five hours after receiving the sacrament and then melted away by degrees, like snow, in the presence of seventy-five persons.The Benedictines have perpetuated Haut or Hainault by erecting a monastery where daily and hourly the praises of Mary are sung in the canonical hours. Miracles still occur at the shrine; miracles of every nature and for every ardent plea sent for help to Heaven’s Queen.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 6: OUR LADY OF MONTE SANTO
Monte Santo, Camporosso and Gorizia in Italy, -- the first is the oldest Marian sanctuary of the Italian region of Venezia Giulia, founded in 1360. It was destroyed in World War I, and rebuilt. It stands nearly 2,000 feet above the sea and before World War II, attracted 100,000 Italian, Slovene, and Austrian pilgrims every year. This is distinguished from the Monte Santo shrine near Gorizia as Il Chiarore, the Shining. Gorizia, in Austria, dated from 1539, when Mary appeared to a young girl on the mountainside.The image was crowned in 1717. The shrine of Gorizia was also destroyed in World War I, and built up again. It is in charge of the Franciscans. Both shrines by the same name but in different countries are famous as being miraculous.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 7: OUR LADY OF THE VALLEY
Our Lady of the Valley or Marienthal, as the monastery is called, is located on the north bank of the Rhine River in the Rhinegau, about fifteen miles from Wesbaden, Germany.According to legend, someone in the early years of the thirteenth century placed a wooden statue of the Blessed Virgin in the recess of a hollow tree—the statue represented Our Lady of Sorrows, with the wounded body of Christ from the Cross held in her arms.Soon the people of the neighborhood came to pray before the little statue framed by the niche of the tree, and reports began to circulate of cures obtained through the intercession of Our Lady.One day a blind man came to pray before the image. He regained his sight. The story of this outstanding favor quickly spread far and wide and pilgrimages began to come to Marienthal from all parts of Germany.Shortly thereafter people erected a church—probably in 1225—and in it enshrined the statue. As the fame of the place grew, the grateful recipients of Mary’s favors began to speak of the statue as Our Lady of Marienthal. Later a much larger church was built and the statue was transferred to it. Our Lady of the Valley, Marienthal is still a place of renowned pilgrimage.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 8: OUR LADY, SEAT OF WISDOM
Wisdom is the most precious gift of the Holy Spirit, for it is properly the fruit of Charity, the most excellent treasure one may possess in this life. By this gift, men become spiritual; their understanding is enlightened; their emotions are regulated in such a manner that all things are judged by discerning good from evil and truth from falsehood; and all actions are ordered by reference to our last end, which is the attainment of eternal life.Mary possessed in a surpassing degree the virtue of charity and she was adorned likewise with the precious gift of wisdom. She could discern as if by instinct the things of heaven from the things of earth, and she directed all her actions toward God with that purity of intention proper to souls filled with Divine Love. This wisdom filled the soul of Mary with a sweetness beyond compare, and communicated to all her exterior actions a heavenly gentleness, for of this virtue is written, “its conversation has no bitterness, its company no tediousness; but only joy and gladness”.True wisdom bears the impress of seven supernatural qualities, which are, as it were, so many pillars on which it rests. St. James describes these seven qualities, “The wisdom that is from above.” Says he, “first indeed is chaste, then peaceable, modest, easy to be persuaded, consenting to the good, full of mercy and good fruits, without judging, without dissimulation” (pretense, deceit, deception).Such were the supports on which the precious gift of wisdom reposed in Mary: she kept her spirit constantly raised toward the supernatural regions contemplating the words of the Most High.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 9: OUR LADY OF GRACE
High up in the Sabine Mountains of Italy, about 35 miles from Rome, stands an ancient and venerable Shrine of our Lady under the title of Our Lady Mentorella, Mother of Grace. To Italian peasants who dwell in the surrounding country the place upon which the shrine stands is simply known as Mentorella.The place and Shrine of Mentorella are considered sacred because as a tradition tells us at the great cliff just behind the shrine, the miraculous conversion of Placid, an officer in the army of Trajan, who was later to be called St. Eustace, took place. He there beheld, it is said, Our Lord crucified between the antlers of a great stag, which as a huntsman he had pursued.The Shrine of Our Lady of Mentorello, Mother of Grace, was built about a thousand years ago though various objects of religion contained therein are much older. The statue of Our Lady encased in glass and placed upon the marble baldachino of the main altar, dates back at least to the twelfth century. Mentorella’s greatest claim to renown lies in the fact that the shrine is a place of pilgrimage and of special devotion to the Blessed Mother of God. The original church was built by Constantine and consecrated by Pope St. Sylvester. Tradition has it that St. Benedict lived for some time before he founded the famous monastery of Subiaco, in a cave immediately behind the Mentorella church.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 10: OUR LADY OF CRANGANOR
In the East Indies stands the church and the shrine of Our Lady of Cranganor, which it is asserted was built by one of the three Kings who visited the Divine Child and His Blessed Mother. India was one of the countries that had the privilege of receiving the light of Faith at the dawn of Christianity.History relates that St. Thomas the Apostle came to India at Cranganor in 52 AD. There the Christians are still known as St. Thomas’ Faithful. Kerala, as the place is also known, is cut off by the mountain ranges from the rest of India, and has held firmly to the Faith, regardless of the gloom of the rest of the continent. The deep spirituality of the Catholics evidences their great love for the Mother of God, Nala-bat as the country is likewise called, may be translated as Mary’s country, Mary’s namesake. It is believed that when St. Thomas came to Cranganor, he brought with him a picture of Our Lady, painted by St. Luke; this was lost after St. Thomas’ martyrdom, but later discovered in a cave at Little Mount, Madras, near the scene of his death.In 1498 when the Portuguese arrived in Cranganor, they were surprised to find so many churches dedicated to Mary. St. Francis Xavier found the people of Cranganor very strong in faith and devoted to Mary; he spared no pains to flame their devotion to the Mother of God.One may wonder why devotion to Mary took root and blossomed so strongly in Kerala—almost as though it met some deep religious and psychological need. Perhaps the reason for such spontaneous devotion is to be found in the position of the mother in the Hindu family. For while love, obedience, devotion and dependence on one’s mother are natural to all peoples and nations, in Cranganor the exalted position of the mother assumes singular, if not unique, proportions. The mother is everything in the family; to depend on her is a deep-rooted tendency of all children in Kerala. Much more than the father, the mother is the breadwinner of the family. She owns, buys, and sells property and governs the house without any consultation with the father; he may frequently be away, but she always remains at home in the house. Her brothers have no right to property, only a living allowance and accommodations. Now this matriarchal system has been carefully guarded by the majority of Hindus. It lies at the very heart of traditional way of life in Kerala; a time-honored custom which has helped to give Marian devotion an easy welcome and speedy growth.St. Ignatius of Loyola always wore the rosary conspicuously over his cassock. To his great satisfaction, Our Lady’s “Madre de Dios” church was assigned to him on his arrival at Cochin, replacing Cranganor as the port of traffic with the western world. When St. Francis arrived, he found a confraternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary already established and he fostered this zealously during his lifetime.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 11: OUR LADY OF ESQUERNES
The shrine of Our Lady of Esquernes, lies a half league from Lille, in Flanders, France. This image began to work miracles about the year 1162, and is still greatly venerated for the wonders which Mary continues to work through her intercession.Legend tells that while the painter responsible for the image of Mary, at the above mentioned shrine, was putting forth all his effort and talent to depict the Mother of God as beautiful as possible, to conceive by the human mind, the Devil tried to intervene. The Virgin suspended the painter in mid-air until the Bishop arrived to pronounce exorcism, and the Evil One molested the painter no further.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 12: OUR LADY’S RECENT APPARITIONS
In the modern day, the Queen of Mercy, of Might, of Grace, continues her pleas and warnings in spite of our deafness. In the winter of 1932-33 she came again; this time to the village of Beauraing in Belgium; again to children and again she requested that we pray the Rosary. Despite the war, pilgrimages were constantly made to this little town and in 1946 a beautiful cathedral was erected here to Mary.Since 1939, Mary has shown herself frequently at the hamlet of Kerrytown, west coast of Ireland. A great series of recent apparitions have taken place in Germany, at the village of Heede in the diocese of Osnabruk from 1937 to 1940; and those in Phaffenhofen, a small village near Ulm in Southern Germany in 1946. At Heede Our Lady manifested herself more than 100 times to four little girls; she sought the girls elsewhere, when the Gestapo forbade them to come. Heede is now also a place of pilgrimage. Mary asked for penance and for the recitation of the Rosary.At Pfaffenhofen, Mary said, “I am the powerful Mediatrix of Grace…Christ is unknown because I am unknown…The world was consecrated to my Immaculate Heart, but this consecration only turned to a fearful responsibility. I demand that the world live this consecration. Have unreserved confidence in my Immaculate Heart; believe that I am all influential with God…fulfill my request so that Christ may reign as the King of Peace! Pray the Rosary! Pray not so much for external things known to all the world”. Our Lady pleaded again to “Keep the Saturdays which have been dedicated to me as I requested”, and constantly reiterated the necessity of prayer. “Pray always”, she begged. “Pray the Rosary!”It would be almost impossible to imagine a more insistent entreaty for our cooperation that delivered by the “Bride of the Holy Ghost”. “I urge people to fulfill my wishes quickly because today and ever ‘We Are Warned’, such fulfillment of my will is necessary for God’s greater honor and glory. The Father pronounces a dreadful woe upon all who refuse to obey His will.”And it is our Lady’s desire that this “message be made known to the public literally”. The doctors of the Church and the Saints have long declared Mary to be the Mediatrix of Grace; devotion to the Immaculate Heart is not new although it received a new impetus at Fatima. St. John Eudes, “Father, Doctor and Apostle of the liturgical worship of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary”, first expounded it in the seventeenth century, and a century later, St. Louis de Montfort said” “It is in the Heart of Mary that the world will find again true fraternity: it is by the Heart of Mary that it will find again true fraternity: it is by the Heart of Mary that it will obtain pardon and mercy of God.”There are many thoughtful people in the world today who believe that “time is short”; although no one knows the exact nature of the evil to be averted. To those outside the Church, “the evil” is to be averted by grandiose schemes of world unity or political federation. Mary, in this her age, is showing us only one way out. She is, as Archbishop Cushing has said, “our Advocate so long as we repent: she is the prophetess of our doom if we remain hard of heart and unheeding”.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 13: OUR LADY OF FATIMA
“I am the Lady of the Rosary”. “I have come to warn the faithful to amend their lives, and to ask pardon for their sins. They must not offend Our Lord anymore, for He is already too grievously offended by the sins of men. People must say the Rosary. Let them continue saying it every day.”“You have seen Hell, where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world the devotion to My Immaculate Heart. If people will do what I tell them, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The War is going to end, but if people do not stop offending God, another and worse one will begin. God will punish the world by war, famine persecution, of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I ask the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the COMMUNION OF REPARATION ON THE FIRST FIVE SATURDAYS. If my requests are granted, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, she will scatter her errors throughout the world, provoking wars and the persecution of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be destroyed…“But in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph, the Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, Russia will be converted and a certain period of peace will be granted to the world.”When we make a sacrifice, Our Lady requests we say: “O my Jesus, I offer this for love of Thee, for the conversion of poor sinners, and in reparation for all the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”When saying the rosary, say after each decade: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have most need of Thy mercy.” “My child (Lucia), behold my heart surrounded with thorns, which ungrateful men place therein at every moment by their blasphemies and ingratitude. You at least try to console me. Announce in my name that I promise to assist at the hour of death, with all graces necessary for salvation, all who on the first Saturday of five consecutive month, go to confession and receive Holy Communion, and keep me company for a quarter of an hour while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the intention of making reparation to me.”“Wars are a punishment from God for sin…More souls go to Hell for sins of the flesh than for any other reason…Certain fashions will be introduced that will offend Our Lord very much…Many marriages are not good; they do not please Our Lord, and are not of God. I can hardly restrain the hand of my Divine Son from striking the world in just punishment for its many crimes.”“If the government of a country leaves the Church in peace and gives liberty to our Holy Religion, it will be blessed by God.”“Tell everybody that God gives graces through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Tell them to ask graces from her and that the Heart of Jesus wishes to be venerated together with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for God has confided the peace of the world to her.”<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 14: OUR LADY OF ARRAS
In the year 371, there fell from heaven at Arras, something like white wool, mixed with heavy rain, of which mention is made by St. Jerome. It is maintained that the famine, great in the country, was alleviated thus, because the inhabitants of Arras prayed to the Blessed Virgin who sent them this heavenly bread, commonly called manna. Some remains of this are still to be seen in the church dedicated to Mary’s honor.There is also a legend regarding the above mentioned shrine, that Our Lady bestowed on two jongleurs a sacred candle which had power to cure persons afflicted with the then raging plague, known as the “Sacred Fire”.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 15: OUR LADY OF THE TAPER
The statue of Our Lady of the Taper was one reason England was known as Mary’s Dowry. It was a simple little statue of Our Lady, her Son on her arm, a burning taper in her other hand.The statue was found on the Welsh coast, standing near the sea. Several times it was brought into Christ Church, Cardigan, but always it was mysteriously returned to the seashore. There a special chapel was built for it, and the taper continued to burn for many years. The shrine is known to have been a place of pilgrimage long before the twelfth century.The infamous Cromwell destroyed the ancient statue, and it was all but forgotten. The present Bishop of Milnevia, however, has asked that the shrine be restored. He is allowing the only known description of Our Lady of the Taper, written by an Anglican, the Rev. Silas M. Harris, to be distributed in the diocese. <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 16: OUR LADY OF AIX la CHAPELLE
The city of Aachen today is a quiet town; still, there is hardly another city in Germany which could equal its past glory. This was the town of Charlemagne (768-814) and it remained the capital of the Holy Roman Empire until the middle of the sixteenth century. Thirty-seven German Emperors were crowned in Aachen. It was made the capital by Charlemagne and a great part of its lasting fame dates from his reign.One of the chapels of the cathedral built by Charlemagne has immeasurable treasures for the Christian world. It guards the four so-called great relics: The cloak of the Blessed Virgin, the swaddling cloth of the Infant Jesus, the loin cloth worn by Our Lord on the cross, and the cloth on which lay the head of St. John the Baptist following his beheading.Charlemagne took pride in securing for the cathedral as many important relics from the Holy Land and Rome as he could. This pious practice was continued by his successors and it explains why the cathedral is so treasured by the Christian world. One of the first desires and orders of Charlemagne was to build a Lady Chapel because of his deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin. A beautiful reliquary there contains the shroud of the Blessed Virgin.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 17: OUR LADY OF THE FOREST
Britanny is a land noted for its pilgrimages, and that of Folgoet is one of the chief of them. In 1419 a church took the place of a small chapel of Our Lady in the forest of Lesneven, and it became the center of a big ecclesiastical establishment, with a pilgrim-shrine.In 1380 there lived, near Lesneven, a good old man named Salaun or Soloman. He had no one to care for him, lived alone, and did not associate with any person; he walked with his eyes on the ground, but his heart, in Heaven. Old and crippled as he was, he might be seen every evening hobbling toward the chapel of the Blessed Virgin where he spent most of the night in prayer, after the villagers had returned to their homes. He was of the woods, and here where the chapel was built, he slept under an oak near a fountain. He begged for bread, and was often laughed at, jeered at and mistreated by the small boys.One day while the villagers were on their way to the chapel, they found the old man in the snow, dying of exposure. They tried to help him, but, with the words “Ave Maria” on his lips, he went to His Queen in Heaven. Legend further relates that he was buried in an out-of-the-way place, since he had no family to mourn him. When spring came, a snow-white lily rose from the outcast’s grave, and on the petals in letters of gold were the words, “Ave Maria!”After a chequered history, the shrine fell into decay and was destroyed by fire during the Revolution. It was restored by the people in 1818 and the venerated image of Our Lady was brought back and crowned in 1888. The pilgrimage has grown in popularity ever since.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 18: OUR LADY OF MONTE PULCIANO
Our Lady appeared to Angela of Monte Pulciano, Italy—encouraging her to continue suffering for the love of Christ—she had been sick practically all her life. Mary left with Angela a small cross to comfort and strengthen her. This little cross is still shown with great solemnity to pilgrims, especially during the month of May. Mary likewise vouchsafed Angela a vision of Christ’s suffering, which lasted three days.To comfort Angela, Mary appeared to her on the feast of the Purification while she was at Holy Mass in the church of the Friars of Foligno. Mary told her this was the hour she had taken the Child Jesus to offer Him in the Temple. Our Lady smiled sweetly, and gave Angela her Babe to hold and caress.The Friars of Foligno have immortalized these visions in the art of the Shrine at Monte Pulciano.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 19: OUR LADY OF MONTE SENARIO
The cradle of the order of the Servants of Mary began at Monte Senario, by a group of Hermits, the Seven Holy Founders. As the result of a vision of the Blessed Virgin, they withdrew from Florence to the deserted hillside.Uncertain of what way of life to follow, they again turned to Our Lady; she appeared to them and told them they were to be her servants; she told them what habit to wear and what rule to follow. From that day in 1240, they were known as the Servants of Mary, or the Servites.Their church on Monte scenario, rebuilt in 1700, is a favorite resort of pilgrims from Florence and further places. Mary, here as elsewhere proves herself the miraculous Mother of God.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 20: OUR LADY OF LUXEMBURG or of CONSOLATION
According to a legend, in 1624, a student of the Jesuit College, established in Luxemburg in 1607, went for a walk along the banks of the Alzette River which ran outside the city walls. Arriving at a place called Rocks of Crispinus, he saw in the hollow of an oak tree, a statue of the Virgin and Child. He told some of the other students, and together they took the statue and placed it on the altar in their church. The next morning it had disappeared. It was afterward found in the hollow of the same oak. Once more they carried it to the church, but it again disappeared.Then the Jesuits decided that Our Lady wished to be honored in that particular spot of the oak tree, so they built a chapel and enshrined the statue in it, giving it the name of Our Lady of Consolation of the Afflicted.The shrine became quite a center of devotion; numerous miracles reputedly took place there, and many pilgrims visited the shrine.During the French Revolution the Duchy of Luxemburg became involved in the struggle. In 1795 the capital was taken, all the churches desecrated and the chapel of Our Lady was totally destroyed. The statue was saved by some quick-thinking soul and secreted in the vault of the Church of the Immaculate Conception.After the Revolution was over, the statue was again available for public veneration, the church rebuilt and the image restored to it. A larger church had to be built, and today Our Lady resides in the enlarged cathedral shrine where my mother of blessed memory venerated her.The shrine in Carey, Ohio, is a replica of the one in Luxemburg, and constant pilgrimages are made to it. It is popularly known as Our Lady of Consolation. The name Luxemburg means “strong little castle”; so Mary has here in the United States her stronghold, too.Click here for video of annual candlelight procession: https://www.youtube.com/embed/kr7DcduLlLE
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June 21: OUR LADY OF MATARIEH
At Grand Cairo in Egypt is seen a miraculous fountain, which Our Lady obtained by her prayers, when she fled to Egypt with St. Joseph and the Child to escape Herod’s wicked designs, and it is held by tradition that there she washed the swaddling clothes of the Infant Jesus. It still displays miraculous powers.Matarieh is five miles Northeast of Cairo; here grew also the famous balsam trees, the oil of which was used in Baptism.The city is by some called the city of the fountain which Christ is said to have used as a bath. The spring had been famous among the ancient Egyptians, who believed that the Sun-People still call it the Holy Fountain.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 22: OUR LADY OF NARNI
At Narni in Italy, there is a shrine to our Blessed Mother. It is said the image spoke to Blessed Lucy, to whom Mary gave the Infant to hold, while Lucy venerated the Mother and Child.Blessed Lucy lived at Narni in the fifteenth century. As a small child she preferred religious articles to toys, sharing the former as well as the latter with her playmates. When she was seven years old, she visited an uncle in whose home a picture of angels was painted on the ceiling. Lucy secretly went there to pray. She was favored by a heavenly vision of Our Lady, her Divine Son and some of the saints.As she grew older, her family wished her to marry; at Lucy’s objection, the Blessed Mother appeared to her and bade her be wedded and imitate her in the life at Nazareth. Although she led a saintly married life, her desire to become a religious persisted. She finally influenced her husband to take the habit of St. Francis, while she established, at the Pope’s request, a convent in Ferrara. Lucy was marked with the stigmata of Christ and suffered much physically as well as spiritually. The members of her community for thirty-eight years were prejudiced against the saint, but Our Lady frequently consoled and strengthened her with visions. She died in 1544 and was beatified by Pope Benedict XIII.A shrine to Our Lady was erected in memory of Blessed Lucy. Our Heavenly Mother granted many miracles after the death of Lucy showing how pleasing she was to her and her Divine Son.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 23: CAUSE OF OUR JOY
Joy is a thing that we all love. We want to be happy, to be free from what causes us distress, and brings delight and pleasure.Without Jesus, who has saved us from sin and hell, there would be no joy for us, neither in this world nor in the next. Mary’s consent was necessary that Jesus become our Redeemer. She cooperated in the redemption by her full and free consent to deliver Jesus to death for us. All the joys that come to us through the Divine Kingdom of Grace, the Sacraments, and the Church, pass through the hands of Mary. When we get to Heaven we shall see how her prayers, her maternal solicitude, her powerful help, followed us in every step of our lives; how she interceded for us in our sorrows that we might receive comfort and consolation; how she presented our petitions to her Son, and helped to get our prayers answered; how she saved us from temptations and falls: how she, the Star of the Sea, piloted us through countless storms and shipwrecks on the sea of life.True joy is something deep, quiet, lasting; not fleeting, exciting, deceptive, like pleasure. It is peace of soul, contentment of heart, deep enduring satisfaction which comes when we refuse God nothing; when we are faithful to conscience, to our duty, to principles; when we make God the center of our lives. True Joy is found only in Jesus. Only God is our True Joy. Mary is the Cause of Our Joy. She alone can make us truly happy, if we cling to her, honor her, imitate her, consecrate our lives, all our loved ones, all we have and do, all our merits to her, in her and through her. Our search for joy can be found, in the quietest and most ordinary life, if our hearts are rightly focused on God through Mary. She brings all joy to our lives. The words of her Magnificat prove this to us: “My spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Savior…”All good things came to me together with her. There is great delight in her friendship, inexhaustible riches in the works of her hands.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 24: OUR LADY OF CLOS-EVRARD
The shrine of our Lady of Clos-Evrard is near Treves, Triet. The image was fastened to an oak tree by a winedresser, who wished to honor Mary; but Our Lady ordered him to build a small hut in her honor.The miracles which were wrought there caused this hut first to be changed into a little chapel, and finally into a church which was dedicated in the year 1449 by James de Siroq, Archbishop of Treves, who strove to restore order to the confused finances of the diocese.Trier boasted of Christians as early as the second century and had a bishop in the third.The cathedral of Trier has the unique privilege of having among its precious relics the Robe of Christ, the Holy Coat as it is called. Our dad of blessed memory visited this cathedral shrine, venerated the precious relics, prayed to Our Lady of the Trier; climbed to the belfry and with his cane touched the blessed bells; an incident we never tired of having him relate. <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 25: THE DIVINE MOTHERHOOD OF OUR LADY
The title of Mother of God with which the Catholic Church honors Mary, is not only the source of incomparable greatness in her, it is also a potent means to ground us firmly in the possession of the true Faith, and to bring us to a more perfect knowledge of God. The divine Maternity is the starting point of the work of salvation. In believing Mary to be the Mother of God we believe also that the Word was made Flesh.A faithful Christian cannot do better than follow the example given us by the Church, which never tires of proclaiming the truth of Mary’s Divine Motherhood to the universe at large. She does this by erecting shrines and churches in Mary’s honor, by the establishment of sodalities consecrated to her, by the approval of religious orders devoted to her service, and by the institution of practices of piety in her honor.To Mary we can apply the words addressed to Judith of old: “Blessed art thou, O daughter, by the Lord the Most High God, above all women upon the earth.”<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 26: OUR LADY OF MELIAPORE
This is the shrine in the East Indies, where St. Francis Xavier often retired to pray during his eleven years with the people of India. Mary was Francis’ constant source of strength and inspiration.The church was that of St. Thomas Mylapore—spelled somewhat differently from the above—and contained Mary’s shrine. The good people knew they were Christians and nothing more; but they had Mary as their Mother, and she cleared the way into their hearts for the zealous Francis to sow the seed of Christ’s Gospel. It was at Mary’s shrine that Francis obtained the miraculous favors to raise people from the dead, cure the sick, convert sinners and bring to Christ thousands of souls. Regardless of where his journeyings took him, Francis always returned to his “Lady of the Wayside”; at Miliapore.She was his most beloved Mother and from her he received consolation and strength, spiritual delights second to the joys of Paradise.The spirit of Francis is still at this shrine, and Mary continues to bestow upon her clients miraculous graces and blessings.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 27: OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP
The name of Our Lady of Perpetual Help derives from one of the most famous of all pictures of Mary, an icon of the fourteenth century painted on walnut wood perhaps in Crete; from where it was supposed to have been stolen by an Italian merchant and brought to Rome.It was venerated, famous for miracles in the Roman Church of St. Matthew, in charge of the Irish Augustinians for a century, when the church was destroyed by fire. The picture was saved, however, and in 1866 it was set up in the Redemptorist Church of St. Alphonsus, on the site of St. Matthew’s. In the following year it was crowned. Since then numberless copies and reproductions of the icons have gone all over the world, some of them themselves wonderworking.Two angels in the picture, Michael and Gabriel, are showing the instruments of the Passion to the Child, who clings to the Mother’s hand, shaking loose a sandal. The Mother reassuringly holds tightly to the Child’s hand.One cannot look at the picture without being struck by the anxious, pained expression on the face of Our Blessed Mother. On the child’s face is seen the same shrinking fear He had during His agony in the garden—a shrinking fear not incompatible with a perfect resignation to the Father’s will. And in His fear he turns to His Mother for help.What does the loosened sandal mean? All babies manage to kick off their shoes, and the Christ child was a perfectly human baby. There is a meaning in His act, however, for He is more than just a human baby. If it were not for this loosened sandal, the picture would not be a complete one. In the Old Law, the putting off of a shoe meant: 1.The yielding of one’s right to another2.The wish to be treated as a servant or a captive3.Readiness for reproach or infamyAs the Child looks at the frightening instruments, and clings to His Mother’s hand, the little shoe slips from His baby foot and He says His Fiat – “Not my will but Thine be done”.We may even imagine the two archangels going back to heaven and being asked, “What did He say?” – and their reply would be something like this: “He was very frightened and clung to His Mother, but He took off His little shoe.”<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 28: OUR LADY OF THE ANGELUS
The institution of the Angelus occurred June 28-29, about 1456 by Pope Callistus. The Turks had been threatening Europe and it was the Pope’s request that the Faithful recite the Angelus for the safety of Christendom against the Turks, and for peace.The Angelus was first recited about sunset, a general practice throughout Europe in the first half of the 14th century, recommended by Pope John XXI. The morning Angelus seems to have started somewhat later, again, for peace. The recitation century; it was called the “Peace Bell”.The present-day custom of reciting the Angelus is a short practice of devotion in honor of the Incarnation, repeated three times each day, morning, noon, and evening, at the sound of the church bell. It is curious how the Angelus is associated historically with the invasion of the Turks, again, in 1683, when they laid siege to Vienna. Emperor Leopold of Austria fled and begged for assistance and help from John Sobieski, a great Polish general, who gathered his army and hastened to the rescue, stopping at one of Our Lady’s shrines in Poland for blessing. On September 11, Sobieski was on the heights of Kahlenberg, near Vienna, and the next day engaged in battle with the Turks. Brilliantly leading his troops, he forced the Turks into a trap, but the number of the foe was so great that he could not penetrate their ranks; then Sobieski’s cavalry turned in retreat, interpreted by the Turks as flight. The Turks rushed forward; but were re-attacked. The shots and cries of Sobieski’s men threw terror into the Turks, when they learned that Sobieski himself, “The Northern Lion” was on the battlefield, for he had defeated the Turks in Poland on previous occasions, and they feared him; therefore, the Turks fled panic-stricken. The battle raged for a time; all along the front was Sobieski everywhere commanding, fighting, encouraging his men and urging them forward. The Turks were finally defeated, Vienna and Christendom saved, and the news was sent to Pope Innocent XI in Rome.Sobieski was a humble man, for in the height of his greatest victory, in a letter to Pope Innocent XI, he said it was God’s cause he was fighting for, and Mary’s honor. His message to the Pope on the victory read: “I came, I saw, but God and Mary conquered”.The day after the Battle; Sobieski entered Vienna victoriously. Later he pursued the Turks into Hungary, again attacking them and defeating them. The Turkish threat to Europe had vanished forever. Pope Innocent XI after the battle of Vienna requested the whole Christian world to recite the Angelus for peace.The Angelus takes on special significance today because Communism is duplicating in many respects the pattern of the Turkish invasion of Europe.This 500th anniversary of the institution of the Angelus by Pope Callistus III, should be a reminder to recite the centuries-old prayer for peace and for the protection of the Christian world from the Red menace of Communism.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 29: OUR LADY OF BUGLOSE
About two leagues from Acqe in Glascony, is the shrine containing a miraculous image of Our Lady of Buglose, which had been likewise miraculously found and brought to the parish church of Buglose.The shrine was for a long time popular as a place of pilgrimage in France; now it is further renowned as the birthplace of St. Vincent de Paul. The house where he was born and where he spent his boyhood is still shown.The above pilgrimage is merely a side issue for pilgrims on their way to the famous shrine of Our Lady where miracles are still granted to pious devotees.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
June 30: OUR LADY OF CALAIS
For a whole year the town of Calais in France was besieged by the English, who lost many troops. Starvation finally forced the French to give up. But the English King, Edward III, would not accept their surrender unless six citizens of Calais came before him, bare-headed, bare-footed, dressed in rough shirts, and each with a halter about his neck. He demanded the keys of Calais and that these men accept his pleasure, however severe, before the rest of the citizens would receive mercy.The entire population prayed to Our Lady of Calais; those who could kneel, knelt at her shrine.No one wanted to give his life in such a way; finally a nobleman stepped forward and offered his head as a ransom to the English king so the city of Calais would be spared. Five others volunteered, and dressed as the king had demanded. The irate king angrily reminded them of the losses he had suffered through their stubbornness; then he ordered the six citizens to be beheaded.The king’s bravest and noblest warriors pleaded with him to spare the men, but in vain. Then Queen Philippa arose from her seat beside the king and kneeling before him with tears streaming down her cheeks, she pleaded: “My lord and husband, I have crossed the sea through many dangers to be with you. Let me now pray you to have pity on these six prisoners.”After a few minutes of deep thought the king declared: “Madam, I wish you had been elsewhere this day. I cannot deny the boon you ask me. Take these men and dispose of them as you will.”The gracious queen gave the six hostages better clothing, each a certain amount of money and had them safely brought back through the lines and set at liberty to return home.The king humiliated at his queen’s mercy, spared the town. Our Lady of Calais was, ever more than before, the merciful Mother of Calais.<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
