Walk with Mary throughout the Year

Day 191: November 19 Our Lady of Divine Providence, San Juan, Puerto Rico Toward the end of his tenure as bishop of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Gil Esteve y Tomás ordered a statue of Our Lady of Divine Providence from a sculptor in Barcelona, Spain, where he had served as vicar before being ordained bishop, being a great devotee of her since his seminary days. On January 2, 1853, the image was displayed for devotion in the cathedral. He wanted to put his entire diocese in the hands of Divine Providence, finding himself faced with the cathedral in ruins and the economy of the diocese in even worse conditions. The Bishop's faith was rewarded and soon bore its first fruits. Within 5 years he managed to rebuild the cathedral church and to establish the cult and devotion to the Virgin of Providence. The original image of the Mother of Divine Providence venerated by the Servants of Mary and other Italian religious orders, which developed from Rome throughout the world after 1752, bears only a...

Day 190: November 18 Our Lady of Chiquinquir à , Colombia Our Lady of the Rosary of Chiquinquirà is the title by which Mary is venerated in many places in Latin America. The title is linked to the image preserved in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary of Chiquinquirà, in the city and diocese of Chiquinquirá, which means "place of mists and swamps." It is located in a region more than 2000 meters above sea level. The image, painted by Alonso de Narváez in 1560 on a cotton cloth woven according to the techniques used by the Indians between 1560 and 1562, is one of the oldest testimonies of Christian religious art in Colombia.  It was painted on behalf of the Spanish Dominicans to encourage the faith of both Indians and settlers. This painting, initially placed in a chapel before being purchased by a private individual, remained without the image of the Virgin for some time. However, a few years later, the original drawing reappeared. And this was the first of a series of mir...

Day 189: November 17 Our Lady of Succor, St Peter's Basilica, Vatican, Rome, Italy It was first venerated and placed in the chapel of the ancient tomb of Pope Leo I known as the Great (390-461) in the Constantinian Basilica. The body of Pope Leo the Great was transferred there in 688 by Pope Sergius. Pope Gregory XIII, elected in 1572, built, according to Michelangelo's idea, the Gregorian Chapel, with dome and vault, with mosaics, gilded stuccoes and precious marbles. Pope Gregory XIII, completing the first chapel open for worship in the new Vatican Basilica, inaugurated it on February 12, 1578, the first Sunday of Lent, placing the image of the "Madonna del Soccorso" (Our Lady of Succor) already venerated in the primitive Vatican Basilica. The same pontiff wished to enrich the greatest temple of Christianity with relics of illustrious saints of the Church. He asked the nuns of Santa Maria in Campo Marzio to be able to transport the precious bones of St Gregory of Na...

Day 188: November 16 Mother of Mercy of the Gate of Dawn (Aušros Vartu Gailestingumo Motinos), Vilnius, Lithuania On the eastern gate called "Aušros Vartai" (Gate of Dawn, in Lithuanian) or also "Ostra Brama" (Sharp Gate, in Polish and Russian), an icon of the Savior looked towards the enemy lands of Russia and Mongolia, and inside, the Virgin of Kherson looked towards the people of Vilnius. In 1626, an adjacent Carmelite monastery took it upon itself to maintain the image of the Virgin and conduct services in her honor. During the 1655-61 war with Russia, citizens prayed before the image of Our Lady for help, and many saw the same image in the sky above the city. After the Polish-Lithuanian victory in 1661, a chapel for the icon of the Virgin was built on the door, which Vilnius jewelers covered in gold and silver. But in 1702, Protestant Swedes occupied Vilnius and forbade the public veneration of the image of the Virgin, who was wounded by a bullet in a battle fo...

Day 187: November 15 Our Lady of Schiavo, Carloforte, Carbonia-Iglesias, Sardinia, Italy In 1542 a nucleus of sailors and fishermen managed by the powerful Genoese family of Lomellini settled on the coast and on the islet of Tabarka in Tunisia, for a series of profitable commercial traffic. Initially, coexistence with the natives seemed peaceful, but when the coral reef also began to decline, problems began. Anything could become a pretext to use violence against the Christian community. Blackmail and slavery became the only weapons imposed by those who reigned in Tunis or Algiers at that time. Tired of this dangerous situation, they asked to be repatriated or moved to a quieter area in order to continue their trade and in 1738 King Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy directed them to the island of the Sparrowhawks, then deserted, which today is called San Pietro and is located near the south-western coast of Sardinia. Grateful for the satisfactory arrangement, the new inhabitants of the isl...

Day 186: November 14 Holy Mary, Avvocata above Maiori, Monte Falerzio, Maiori, Salerno, Campania, Italy In a panorama of incomparable beauty, east of the Amalfi Coast, on a plateau of Mount Mirteto, at the foot of Falerzio (1024 m), stands the Sanctuary of the Avvocata, near Badia di Cava, above Maiori. To those who climb Mount Avvocata from Maiori, the Sanctuary appears as an impregnable fortress, located at the top of a long rocky wall. Not many meters below it, there is a long cave, with a rather narrow entrance, in which the cult of the Virgin originated under the title of Avvocata. On an afternoon in November 1470, Gabriele Cinnamo, a shepherd from Ponteprimario near Tramonti, while he was intent on grazing his flock together with the young Dattilo Parito, saw a graceful dove wandering around a high cliff surrounded by ivy, which repeatedly came out and returned to a bush that had grown at a fair height. Driven by curiosity, he tried in vain to climb the steep rock, but he did not...

Day 185: November 13 Our Lady of Siponto, Mafredonia, Foggia, Italy Siponto, a Roman colony, is the seat of an ancient diocese.  Tradition has it that St Peter consecrated the first bishop of Siponto, St Justin; among its shepherds is San Lorenzo Maiorano, a relative of the Eastern emperor Zeno (474 – 491) and the protagonist of the story of the apparitions of the Archangel Michael. The icon is preserved in the sanctuary of Holy Mary Major (today the cathedral of the "new" Manfredonia). The sanctuary stands on the Via Sacra Longobardorum that starts from Monte Sant'Angelo, next to the remains of an early Christian Basilica that dates back to Bishop Lorenzo; local tradition traces the origins of the church to St Justin (first century AD). The only documented date is 1117, the year of the solemn consecration and deposition of the relics of St Lawrence under the main altar. The question of the origin of the building is much debated among scholars; it was probably built betwe...