VIRGIN OF ANDOCS

Day 219: December 17

Virgin of Andocs, Andocs, Hungary



The story goes that before the Turkish invasion of 1526, to save the statue of the Virgin and Child angels placed an entire chapel in Andocs, today in southwestern Hungary.

He was the guardian of the village of Andocs, who, attracted by the singing of the angels, saw them as they placed the chapel on the clearing. The next morning he went to the place with others from the village, when they saw that the church had been built without foundations, they understood that it was a real miracle.

In the following nights the Blessed Virgin appeared several times, with her hosts of angels who sang and illuminated the chapel. The Blessed Virgin also appeared to the women of the village exhorting them to piety and prayer.

Soon, the first miracle occurred. A blind shepherd boy, when he raised his eyes to the Virgin Mary, began to see again. According to legend, the shepherd children had roles of primary importance, so much so that they warned the angels that the place on which they had initially placed the chapel was impregnated with water and that it would sink, so the angels placed it where it is today. It is also said that it was the shepherds who conveyed the message that the Blessed Virgin defended and hid refugees fleeing from Turkish enemies.

In any case, by the middle of the century the southern Transdanubian region was under Ottoman rule, and many surviving Christians emigrated or became Protestants.  Little by little the church was abandoned.

In 1640, the Catholic bishop sent Jesuit priests to re-evangelize the area. It was in this abandoned Gothic church in Andocs, that Fr János Horváth found the statue of the Virgin.

By the 1700's, the town had become a place of pilgrimages and miracles. In 1721 the Franciscans built a friary next to the church, which they began to rebuild in the Baroque style in 1725.

On December 17, 1747, when the bishop consecrated the new church of St Mary, Countess Katalin Széchényi donated a magnificent robe for the statue. From this gesture began a tradition that continues today, in fact every second Friday of the month her dress is changed.

Many of the embroidered garments donated over the centuries are on display in the Cloak Museum. The busiest days of pilgrims are August 15 (Assumption), September 8 (birth of Mary) and October 8 (feast of Our Lady of Hungary).


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"As Jesus is inseparable from the Mother of God, so the soul sought by the Trinity as spouse of God must be inseparably, ineffably and efficaciously joined to Mary."

(365 Days with St Justin Russolillo, comp. Shiju Chittattukara & Anil Akkara, Blessed Justin Vocationary, Florham Park, 2021, p. 118)

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