Many Faces of Mary

Tradition tells us that St. Luke painted the original image of Our Lady on a table top in St. Joseph’s workshop in Nazareth. We truly believe that St. Luke sat at the feet of Mary and listened to Her tell about the Miraculous Conception and Birth of Our Tradition is the handing down orally of stories, beliefs, customs, etc., from generation to generation.

August 21, 1879 was a rainy day in County Mayo, and particularly in the little village of Knock. The morning had given hope of a fair day; but as the afternoon progressed, the dark rainclouds gathered over the little hamlet. Winds from the east whipped up, darting back and forth, bristling through the meadows and fields. The rains began, and hammered down on the little area.

Portugal is a very special place in the hearts of Our Dear Lord Jesus and His Mother Mary. It has been consecrated to Mary for as long as anyone can remember. The History of Portugal is filled with kings making petitions to Our Lady which were always answered, and promises which were always kept.

In order to get the proper perspective on this shrine, we brought a Pilgrimage of Peace to Guadalupe in December of 1986, to see and experience first hand the shrine and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which falls on the 12th of December. One of our priests put it best at his homily during Mass at the Shrine.

Family, we have traveled thousands of miles across the seas to beloved France, “eldest daughter of the Church.” Our Lady has called us to bring you the best kept secret for 400 years, a Sanctuary, a Shrine to Our Lady Refuge of Sinners, a place to come to shed everything which separates you from Our Lord.

How do you write about Our Lady and not cry? How does your heart not fill up with emotion, so that you just want to burst? We want to share that Lady with you, the Mother whom we love, whose title tells what she has always done, help! We are referring to the image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, or as She is sometimes known.

This image of Our Lady is one I grew up with, seeing it in my maternal grandmother's bedroom and in the homes of most of our Italian-American neighbors and relatives. And as you travel more and more in the south of Italy, you see the image of Our Lady of Pompeii being venerated, many times, in tiny Shrines, bedecked by flowers and candles, in outdoor Chapels as well as those indoors.

Bob and I have traveled all over the world, everywhere from the Shrines of the Holy Land to the Shrines of Europe, Mexico and Canada. But although we had pilgrimaged to Italy many times, we had never visited the land of my ancestors. I think, in all of us, there is an unquenchable thirst to visit the land of our ancestors. For me, that is Sicily. My father was born there.

The visit of my Mary to earth on September 19, 1846 is usually referred to as OUR LADY OF TEARS or OUR LADY WHO WEPT. We sometimes believe that the only reason she is not weeping all the time is because she has the Beatific Vision of her Magnificent Son to comfort her.

Mary’s appearance to 5 children in Beauraing, Belgium, in November and December of 1932 has always fascinated us. There are so many aspects of the visit from Our Heavenly Lady that we don’t quite understand. But we know there was a need for Mary to come to our aid in this place at this time. Nothing is by coincidence with her.

Twelve days after Our Lady with the Golden Heart said “Goodbye” to the five children in Beauraing, Belgium, she made her presence felt again in Banneux, Belgium, some fifty miles to the northeast.Mariette Beco, an 11 year old girl, saw a beautiful young lady, dressed in white, standing above the ground outside her house. It begins again. OR DOES IT CONTINUE?

Pontmain is a small village on the borderline between the Normandy and Brittany sections of France. It is very small, situated between Fougeres and Mont St. Michel, which is on the Normandy Coast. The first time we visited Our Lady of Hope, in the summer, offshore breezes from the English Channel provided refreshing cool air to the area, as a relief from the summer heat.

Lourdes is such a tribute to, and affirmation of, the love and care, the concern, patience, and attention that is showered on us by our Heavenly Family. It is also a magnificent prayer of faith the world has been given in the the desire of Our Sweet Mary, Bernadette’s Aquero (Dear One), to take care of our physical and spiritual needs.

The tradition of the image of Our Lady of the Gate goes way back, to before the time it was placed in the Chapel above the gate. There are legends supporting, it came to Lithuania by way of Poland in the late Fourteenth Century, when a Polish princess married into a royal Lithuanian family. Her name was Jadwiga.

We follow Mother Mary on a journey again to a far-off place, high up in the mountains, where no one would consider going. We have never really paid much attention to what towns are located where in Japan, other than Tokyo, Nagasaki and Hiroshima. In looking on a map, we find Akita to be a thriving metropolis, in the north of the country.

In 1531, Our Lady of Guadalupe came on Tepeyac Hill and identified Herself as Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. Almost one hundred years later, we find that these Indians, too, had a devotion to Our Lady, with their hearts centered on a statue they referred to as Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.

Fr. Antonio de Segovia donated the sacred image of Our Lady, and it was first placed in a very simple hermitage with a flat roof made of palms. Sometime later a larger, more accomodating Chapel was built. In those days, the image was not encased in an arch or protected in any way. Around 1608 or 1609, this small Chapel, by now very old, fell into ruins.

It was the year 1447 and all of Italy was being attacked by a new enemy - the plague. The casualties surpassed the numbers lost in any war. The citizens of Italy were dying by the thousands, as the pestilence spread from city to city and village to village. No one was safe! The plague was nearing Macerata's borders, when the citizens of the town decided to call a Town Council meeting.

Small Pox struck and it accomplished what no conqueror was able to bring about. Nine out of every ten members of a family were struck down by this deadly plague. Everyone was helpless! Their trusted medicine men were not familiar with this sickness that threatened to annihilate 90% of the population.

March 25 was the Feast of the Annunciation. On this particular year, 1945, it fell on Palm Sunday. This is such an important season in our Church. But in those times, during the final days of the war, thoughts were not focused on Palm Sunday, or the Feast of the Annunciation, or even Easter, for that matter. Ida Peerdeman, the woman to whom Our Lady chose to come, called it a "hunger winter."

The miracle, before you, came to be because of faith and the hard work behind that faith. The early settlers to the New World, with hope and determination, laid the foundation of what you see, when you visit the awesome Cap-de-la-Madeleine.

"In more than 350 years of residency in Santa Fe, she has been known by several names - Our Lady of the Assumption, Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary and La Conquistadora. "In this 500th year since Columbus planted the Spanish flag in the Americas, the icon of the Virgin Mary and relic of Spanish Catholicism has a new and truer name: Our Lady of Peace.

The people of Lithuania have holy stubbornness. The holy stubbornness that made them resist the one True Faith, would be the same holy stubbornness that would keep them Catholic, in the face of great danger. That is, the people at large, not those princes who had special interests and wanted to steal the lands and churches from the Church.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Allotting became very popular towards the end of the Fifteenth century. A little child had fallen in a river and drowned. When his mother found the child,and heard an inner voice telling her to rush the dead body of the child to the Holy Chapel of Our Lady, which she did, and the child came back to life at the altar.