Walk with Mary throughout the Year

Day 101: August 19 Our Lady of the Chain, Scillato, Palermo, Sicily, Italy The cult of Our Lady of the Chain begun in the year 1392 in Palermo, when King Martin I the Younger reigned in Sicily. Three men were unjustly convicted and on August 18th they were taken to Piazza Marina, where they were supposed to be hanged. Just as they were preparing the forks, a great storm broke out that forced the executioners to take refuge in the Church of Our Lady of the Port and the people fled from the storm. While waiting for the execution to be resumed, the three convicts were tied with double chains to the altar of the Virgin, but the storm continued for the whole day, and the guards had to spend the night in the church to watch them. The three wailed at the feet of Our Lady invoking her with the title of Virgin of Graces and began to beg her insistently, and suddenly, while the soldiers fell into a deep sleep, the chains that held the three broke and the voice of the Madonna reassured them: “Go ...

Day 100: August 18 ​Our Lady's Veil (Sancta Camisia) The first church at Chartres claims to have one of the most venerated relics in Christendom, Our Lady's Veil, which tradition declares was worn by the Virgin while giving birth to Jesus Christ and also as she stood at the foot of the Cross. It had been transferred in the early years of the Christian Church from Jerusalem to Constantinople and presented by the Empress Irene to the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne (742-814). In 876 his descendant Charles the Bald gave the relic to the cathedral at Chartres. Our Lady's Veil is kept in a golden reliquary beside the high altar and has formed the focus of many traditions throughout the centuries. For instance, in 911 when the bandit Rollo and his henchmen were besieging Chartres, local people took the veil from the church and paraded it as a flag of war. Rollo and his men were defeated and the siege was lifted. The shrine is renowned for pilgrimages made by many of the great doct...

Day 99: August 17 Our Lady of Belmonte, Valperga, Turin, Piedmont, Italy In 1016 the Virgin appeared to a Benedictine monk, Arduino (formerly Count and Marquis of Ivrea, who in 1002 had been elected King of Italy by the princes intolerant of the German yoke) while he was lying seriously ill in his castle, ordering him to build three churches in her honor: in Belmonte (Turin) where the Benedictines were to officiate, in Turin (under the title of Consolation) and in Crea in Monferrato. High on the hill, at 727 meters above sea level, clearly visible from all the surrounding area, the Sanctuary of Belmonte has been a beacon of Christian faith in Canavese for a millennium. Its white silhouette stands out in isolation at the summit of the characteristic mountain whose reddish granite , already clearly visible along the road from Prascorsano, and the vast expanses of pink sand on the northern slope, the "sabbionere," contribute to creating a highly evocative landscape around the re...

Day 98: August 16 ​ There are several stories about the origin of the title of Our Lady of Trapani. According to one, the origin of the image dates back to the year 733, and it was the work of a sculpture on the island of Cyprus. He placed it in a church of Fagamusta, where it remained a center of devotion to the Virgin for 400 years. Then in 1113, during the reign of Baldwin, King of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem there was established in Jerusalem, the Order of Templars. Around 1130, a group of crusaders, knights and nobles on Cyprus, decided they would join the Order of Templars and forthwith took ship to Jerusalem, and with them they took the image of the Virgin and Child. The image seems to have remained in Jerusalem for almost 150 years. Then, after the failure of the 7th Crusade, one of the Knights Templar – said to have been Guerrogio of Pisaset, sailed for Italy taking the image with him, possibly to save it from profanation by the Turks. During the course of the voyage, th...

Day 97: August 15 The Solemnity of the Assumption honors the fact that when the Blessed Virgin Mary completed her life on earth, she was taken body and soul into Heaven to be with her resurrected Son so as to adore the Most Holy Trinity forever. It’s an amazing fact to consider that she retains her body and soul, united as one in Heaven, in anticipation of that glorious day when the new Heavens and Earth will be created and when all the faithful will rise so as to live in a new bodily form forever with God. Though this dogma of our faith had been held and believed by the faithful from the earliest times of our Church, especially since it was witnessed by those closest to our Blessed Mother at the time of her glorious Assumption, it wasn’t until November 1, 1950, that Pope Pius XII solemnly proclaimed it to be so, raising this teaching of our faith to the level of a dogma, meaning, it must be held and believed by all. In part, the Holy Father declared, “…we pronounce, declare, and defin...

Day 96: August 14 The historical origin of the Madonna of Canoscio is shrouded in mystery. An ancient folk tradition tells us that in the year 1348, a certain Vanni di Iacopo, living in a house on the Canoscio hill (Canusium = white place), as a votive promise at the time of a terrible plague, left his heirs “40 niente” (Venetian silver coin) to have a “Maestà” painted of the Virgin Mary. (Maestà – religious painting style which is typically composed of an enthroned icon of Jesus and Mary with other figures around likes saints and angels) The painter who remains unknown painted the Madonna as a fresco on the wall in the moment of Her “Transit”, that is, in the passage from this earthly life to the glory of heaven with the twelve Apostles on the sides and above, the Assumption and Crowning in the midst of the angels. But of the ancient primitive painting we are left with only the image of the sleeping Madonna, with a beautiful delicate luminous face, of transparent celestial whiteness. ...