OUR LADY OF CONSOLATION

 Day 41: June 20



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.

St Justin Writes...


"The Blessed Mother is really, truly present among us, especially in her room."
(Opera Omnia, vol. X, no. 134, quoted in: Louis Caputo, Justinian Anthology, Vocationist Editions, Palisades Park, 2013, p. 71)

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