OUR LADY OF THE VALLEY

 Day 28: June 7




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.


St Justin Russolillo says...

"The love-God joined together virginity and maternity in a single creature and made Mary."
(Opera Omnia, 330, quoted in: Louis Caputo, Justinian Anthology, Palisades Park, 2013, p. 70)


Prayer to Mary


O Mary, you are praying for us,
you are always praying for us.
We know it, we feel it.
Oh what joy and truth, what sublime glory,
in this heavenly and human interchange of sentiments, words and actions,
which the rosary always brings us:
the tempering of our human afflictions,
the foretaste of the peace that is not of this world,
the hope of eternal life!

(Pope John XXIII)

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