Walk with Mary throughout the Year

Day 211: December 09 Mother of God of Consolation, Krakow, Poland Poland was going through an extremely difficult phase: the economic system was in ruins, the country had been heavily depopulated and was exhausted by a long period of wars. King Casimir III of Poland in 1349 killed the bishop's messenger who communicated the excommunication because of the public immorality of his customs. He had a hole cut in the ice of the Vistula River, the longest in Poland, and there he had the messenger thrown, so that he drowned in its icy waters. Repentant of that extreme gesture, Casimiro began a journey of conversion that earned him the title of "Great". He was the only king to be given this title in all of Polish history. He built numerous castles, reconstituted the Polish army, and reformed private and criminal law. Casimir was also responsible for the foundation of the University of Kraków, the first in northern Europe, although his death interrupted its development. The real f...

Day 210: December 08 Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary In the bull Ineffabilis Deus of December 8, 1854 , Pope Pius IX proclaimed that this was a doctrine revealed by God and that therefore all the faithful must firmly and constantly believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, was, by the unique grace and privilege of almighty God in the light of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of humanity, free from every trace of original sin. The stain of original sin had not been removed but was absent in his soul. For many centuries before this solemn definition, the Church had believed in this doctrine, but it was not a "dogma": it had the same status as the doctrine of the Assumption before 1950. From the moment of the proclamation of Pius IX in 1854, every Catholic was required to believe in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. CONSECRATION FOR THE FEAST OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 1. O immaculate virgin Mary, we rejoice with ...

Day 209: December 07 Our Lady of Miracles of Saronno, Varese, Italy The Sanctuary of Saronno was built following the miraculous healing of a young man from the village named Pietro Morandi called "Pedretto", who had been suffering for several years from a serious form of sciatica that immobilized him on his straw mattress and did not allow him to walk. It was in the years around 1460 and no later than 1462. At the intersection of the Varesina road, then called the Lugano road because the road that from Monza, crossing Saronno, led and leads to Ticino to reach Piedmont, there was a small chapel, a small shrine, with a statue of Our Lady holding the Child Jesus in her arms; a terracotta statue dated to the second half of the fourteenth century. In front of this little chapel, on a cold winter night, the miracle took place. Poor Pedretto had been bedridden for about six years when one night, while he was tormented by pain and spasm, his room lit up with a sudden brilliance, in w...

Day 208: December 06 Immaculate Conception of El Viejo, Chinandega, Nicaragua In 1562, due to a tropical storm, Fr Lorenzo de Cepeda, who was traveling through Peru, had to stop at Puerto de la Possession, now called El Realejo. Among the things Fr Lorenzo carried with him was the image of the Virgin of the Conception. Fr Lorenzo de Cepeda was a very pious man. He had a sister who was a Carmelite nun, who is now known throughout the world as Saint Teresa of Ávila, a Doctor of the Church. From El Realejo, Fr Lorenzo de Cepeda was forced to go to El Viejo, a nearby village, but he did not want to leave the statue so dear, so he took it with him to deposit it in the village parish. He sought help from the Franciscan friars who lived in Chamulpa, now El Viejo, who lived in the convent and were able to give him the medical care he needed. The inhabitants of El Viejo, Indians and mestizos, were immediately attracted by the beauty of the image, and gladly went to the parish to admire the ...

 Day 207: December 05 Apparition of the Virgin in Paris to Sr Teresa Emmanuel de la Mère de Dieu, Paris, France On December 5, 1871, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to an Irish nun Sr Teresa Emmanuel de la Mère de Dieu in Paris, showing her the image of a future Marian army with the Immaculate Conception on its flags. Sister Teresa Emmanuel de la Mère de Dieu together with St Marie-Eugenie of Jesus (1817-1898) founded the Congregation de l'Assomption of Paris in 1839. At Christmas 1844, Sr Maria Eugenie de Jesús took over the leadership of the Work, under the guidance of Abbot Théodore Combalot, who had long wanted to find a community of nuns dedicated to the education of the daughters of the liberal bourgeoisie. But the vagueness of Combalot's intentions created some problems. On the other hand, Br Emmanuel d'Alzon proved to be a valid collaborator, to whom Sr Maria Eugenia gave the idea of founding the Augustinians of the Assumption (commonly called Assumptionists). The ...

Day 206: December 04 Our Lady of the Conception, Sameiro, Braga, Portugal The Sameiro Sanctuary is a Marian sanctuary located in Braga, Portugal, whose construction began on July 14, 1863. The founder of this sanctuary was the vicar of Braga, Fr Martinho António Pereira da Silva, who in 1871 placed the image of Our Lady on the top of the mountain. This sanctuary is the largest center of Marian devotion in Portugal, after Fatima. The church, completed in the 20th century, is an imposing building, and inside, a rich altar houses the venerated statue of Our Lady. In front of the church is an imposing, wide staircase, at the top of which rise two tall columns, with statues of the Virgin Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In 1904, the fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the sacred effigy was solemnly crowned before over half a million pilgrims. In 1954, the Sanctuary was awarded the Golden Rose, a tribute from the Supreme Pontiff to the most ...

Day 205: December 03 Our Lady of Victories, Paris, France Originally built by  Louis XIII  in 1629 as a sign of gratitude for the favors received from Mary and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, in the third decade of the nineteenth century the Basilica of Our Lady of Victories in Paris was in deep decline. The Church had suffered degradation at the time of the French Revolution and in the following years had been transformed into a Stock Exchange before returning to its former condition in 1809, but with very few parishioners. Fr Desgenettes , curate of Our Lady of Victories, celebrated Mass on the Altar of the Virgin. Given the low turnout of parishioners, he was thinking of leaving the parish, when he heard these words very distinctly:  "Consecrate the Parish to the Most Holy Immaculate Heart of Mary." In addition to the general religious indifference, there were also some manifestations of hostility that convinced him that he himself was the cause. He asked the Archbish...

Day 204: December 02 Our Lady of Loigny, Loigny, France General Louis-Gaston de Sonis, commander of the Papal Zouaves, was a fervent devotee of the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He was seriously wounded in the battle of December 2, in the same place where, in 1429, St Joan of Arc put the English to flight. While the general languished in his great suffering, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to him to console him. The Battalion of Papal Zouaves was created on 1 January 1861 on the model of the Zouave Corps of the French Army. The corps was made up of volunteers, mostly French, Belgian and Dutch, who came to defend the Papal States threatened by the desire of the new Kingdom of Italy to complete the national union with Rome by making it the capital of the kingdom. Its history is identified with the last decade of the life of the Papal State (1860-1870). The regiment was dismissed on 21 September 1870, after the capture of Rome. On the night of December 1, 1870, the Zouaves were or...