English
Documentation
Along the roads of Europe
Along the roads of Europe
At the beginning of April 1970, St Josemaria, founder of Opus Dei, said he wanted to visit two shrines of our Lady like a twelfth-century pilgrim: with the same love, the same simplicity and the same joy. He was going there to pray for the world, the Church, the Pope, and Opus Dei. That sums up the dispositions and intentions he had in his heart as he traveled like a pilgrim of our Lady to shrines around the world.
St Josemaria’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary had deep roots in his soul, filled his life and every hour of the day, and although he lifted his heart to Mary many times a day he also felt the need to show her his love with these visits to her shrines.
“During many visits to shrines of our Lady,” wrote St Josemaria, “I have often reflected and meditated on the wonderful affection which so many Christians have for the Mother of Jesus. And I have always seen it as a response of love, of filial love and thanksgiving to our Lady, a sign of a child’s affection. For Mary is closely tied to the greatest sign of God's love – the Word made flesh who took upon himself our sins and weakness. Faithful to the divine purpose for which she was born, Mary continues to spend herself in the service of men, who are all called to be brothers of her son Jesus. The Mother of God is also truly the mother of men” (Christ is Passing By, 140).
St Josemaria learned from the treasures of popular piety stored up in churches and shrines dedicated to our Lady. He loved to hear about the history of a given invocation of Mary, and the motherly protection our Lady had provided for centuries in such places; he was stirred by the faith and love and penitence of so many simple people.
It would be impossible to give a complete list of all the journeys filled with intense prayer and confident abandonment in our Lady made by the founder of Opus Dei to the major shrines of our Lady in Europe and several countries in Latin America.
Belgium: Sancta Maria Regina Pacis – Our Lady Queen of Peace
One of the earliest mementoes of a visit of St Josemaria to Belgium is a postcard with a picture of our Lady that he sent to Rome from there, dated November 28, 1955.
He went back to Belgium the following year and several more times later on, stopping in cities like Bruges, Antwerp and Louvain. In Brussels he often visited St Catherine’s Church, where people venerate a statue of Jesus’ grandmother St Anne, with the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus. He also prayed in St Nicholas’s Church, with its statue of Sancta Maria Regina Pacis – Our Lady Queen of Peace.
In one of the gatherings with young people he had in Rome during Holy Week 1968, he was given a small polychrome stone copy of the statue of Sancta Maria Sedes Sapientiae, Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, Patron of the University of Louvain.
“How beautiful she is!” he said, and gave a hug to the young man who had brought it.
Holland, the Church of Our Dear Lady Onze Lieve Vrouwe Kerk
Onze Lieve Vrouw, “Our Dear Lady”, is one of the Dutch terms for the Blessed Virgin Mary. There are many pictures and statues that have been venerated for centuries, and St Josemaria prayed before quite a few of them.
Near Keizersgracht, one of the famous canals that go through Amsterdam, the faithful venerate a picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and also a painting that St Josemaria particularly loved, showing the death of St Joseph, in the company of Jesus and Mary.
England, Mary’s Dowry
On August 5, 1958, St Josemaria celebrated Mass in Great Britain for the first time. He had arrived at Dover the day before, and, as was his custom, as soon as he disembarked he had said three Hail Marys, concluding with the aspiration “Sancta Maria, Regina Angliae, ora pro nobis!”
Prayer to our Lady would be a constant in the yearly trips he made to the United Kingdom until 1962. In London, the founder of Opus Dei visited the Catholic Westminster Cathedral, St James’s Spanish Place, and Saint Etheldreda’s, and the Anglican Church of the Annunciation in Bryanston Street, Westminster Abbey, and St George’s Hanover Square. He went to all of them rosary in hand. In the Anglican churches of All Hallows and St Bartholomew, he paused to pray with great faith before statues of our Lady.
In the thirteenth century the devotion of Englishmen to the Mother of God was so well known that England was called “Our Lady’s Dowry”. One of the places with the longest tradition in the history of English Catholicism is the shrine of Our Lady of Willesden (now in London). The shrine’s history goes back to medieval times, when Willesden was a small village to the north-west of London. The remains of an eleventh-century church have been discovered on the site, and records from the twelfth century speak of a church of Our Lady of Willesden. During the Black Death that swept through England and Europe in the fourteenth century many pilgrims came to Willesden, drawn by accounts of miraculous cures and graces granted by the Blessed Virgin Mary there. In this way it became one of the country’s major shrines.
As happened in many such places, the statue of Our Lady of Willesden was destroyed in 1535. The statue that is now venerated in the church was carved, from the wood of an old oak tree that grew near the ancient shrine, at the end of the nineteenth century, and solemnly crowned in the Marian Year 1954. Above it is the inscription Imago per nefas abducta, amore filiorum reducta – a statue stolen by wickedness and replaced by the love of her children. The feast of Our Lady of Willesden is celebrated on August 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption of Our Lady, and it was on that day in 1958 that St Josemaria went to Willesden to pray to our Lady.
Ireland: August 15, 1959
St Josemaria made his only visit to Ireland in the summer of 1959. It was not by chance that he arrived there on August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption. Naturally, as he always did in the countries he visited, St Josemaria filled his visit with a strong note of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and he entrusted all the apostolate being done in Ireland to our Lady’s care. While he was being driven from one place to another he sowed the roads of Ireland with Hail Marys.
Germany: recourse to the Mutter Gottes, Mother of God
The first time St Josemaria went to Germany was 1949. After that he made many trips by car to Munich, Cologne, Aachen, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Mainz and Koblenz. The pictures and statues of our Lady he encountered on his way were the focus of his affectionate love and veneration for the Mother of God. These included the shrine of Maria Laach and the Mailänder Madonna or “Milan Madonna”.
Maria Laach is about seventy kilometres from Cologne in a Benedictine abbey that is frequently visited by the locals of this part of Rhineland. St Josemaria went to pray there on September 22, 1958.
The Milan Madonna is a beautiful more-than-life-size Gothic statue in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of Cologne Cathedral. St Josemaria often prayed in this cathedral and celebrated Holy Mass at an altar presided over by a famous painting by Stephan Lochner.
In Cologne he also celebrated Holy Mass several times in the church of Sankt Andreas, very close to the cathedral, where the Rosenkranzmadonna or rose-crowned Madonna is venerated, and which is the burial place of St Albert the Great. In the Lady Chapel of this church, which was started in the twelfth century, several scenes from the life of the Virgin may be seen, painted in about the fourteenth century – a masterpiece of Gothic mural painting.
After all his journeys there St Josemaria could justly say, to a group of Germans in Rome, that he knew Germany as well as they did, and that he had covered the roadways of their country with Hail Marys and songs.
Recourse to the Mother of God, Mutter Gottes, was a constant feature in the apostolic expansion that St Josemaria dreamed of. On his journeys he would visit places of long-standing devotion to our Lady to implore her protection, and he encouraged his daughters and sons to invoke her frequently.
At the beginning of April 1970, St Josemaria, founder of Opus Dei, said he wanted to visit two shrines of our Lady like a twelfth-century pilgrim: with the same love, the same simplicity and the same joy. He was going there to pray for the world, the Church, the Pope, and Opus Dei. That sums up the dispositions and intentions he had in his heart as he traveled like a pilgrim of our Lady to shrines around the world.
St Josemaria went on pilgrimage to shrines of our Lady around the world
“During many visits to shrines of our Lady,” wrote St Josemaria, “I have often reflected and meditated on the wonderful affection which so many Christians have for the Mother of Jesus. And I have always seen it as a response of love, of filial love and thanksgiving to our Lady, a sign of a child’s affection. For Mary is closely tied to the greatest sign of God's love – the Word made flesh who took upon himself our sins and weakness. Faithful to the divine purpose for which she was born, Mary continues to spend herself in the service of men, who are all called to be brothers of her son Jesus. The Mother of God is also truly the mother of men” (Christ is Passing By, 140).
St Josemaria learned from the treasures of popular piety stored up in churches and shrines dedicated to our Lady. He loved to hear about the history of a given invocation of Mary, and the motherly protection our Lady had provided for centuries in such places; he was stirred by the faith and love and penitence of so many simple people.
It would be impossible to give a complete list of all the journeys filled with intense prayer and confident abandonment in our Lady made by the founder of Opus Dei to the major shrines of our Lady in Europe and several countries in Latin America.
Prayer to our Lady would be a constant in the yearly trips he made to the United Kingdom until 1962
One of the earliest mementoes of a visit of St Josemaria to Belgium is a postcard with a picture of our Lady that he sent to Rome from there, dated November 28, 1955.
He went back to Belgium the following year and several more times later on, stopping in cities like Bruges, Antwerp and Louvain. In Brussels he often visited St Catherine’s Church, where people venerate a statue of Jesus’ grandmother St Anne, with the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus. He also prayed in St Nicholas’s Church, with its statue of Sancta Maria Regina Pacis – Our Lady Queen of Peace.
In one of the gatherings with young people he had in Rome during Holy Week 1968, he was given a small polychrome stone copy of the statue of Sancta Maria Sedes Sapientiae, Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, Patron of the University of Louvain.
“How beautiful she is!” he said, and gave a hug to the young man who had brought it.
The death of St Joseph, in the company of Jesus and Mary.
Onze Lieve Vrouw, “Our Dear Lady”, is one of the Dutch terms for the Blessed Virgin Mary. There are many pictures and statues that have been venerated for centuries, and St Josemaria prayed before quite a few of them.
Near Keizersgracht, one of the famous canals that go through Amsterdam, the faithful venerate a picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and also a painting that St Josemaria particularly loved, showing the death of St Joseph, in the company of Jesus and Mary.
England, Mary’s Dowry
On August 5, 1958, St Josemaria celebrated Mass in Great Britain for the first time. He had arrived at Dover the day before, and, as was his custom, as soon as he disembarked he had said three Hail Marys, concluding with the aspiration “Sancta Maria, Regina Angliae, ora pro nobis!”
Prayer to our Lady would be a constant in the yearly trips he made to the United Kingdom until 1962. In London, the founder of Opus Dei visited the Catholic Westminster Cathedral, St James’s Spanish Place, and Saint Etheldreda’s, and the Anglican Church of the Annunciation in Bryanston Street, Westminster Abbey, and St George’s Hanover Square. He went to all of them rosary in hand. In the Anglican churches of All Hallows and St Bartholomew, he paused to pray with great faith before statues of our Lady.
In the thirteenth century the devotion of Englishmen to the Mother of God was so well known that England was called “Our Lady’s Dowry”. One of the places with the longest tradition in the history of English Catholicism is the shrine of Our Lady of Willesden (now in London). The shrine’s history goes back to medieval times, when Willesden was a small village to the north-west of London. The remains of an eleventh-century church have been discovered on the site, and records from the twelfth century speak of a church of Our Lady of Willesden. During the Black Death that swept through England and Europe in the fourteenth century many pilgrims came to Willesden, drawn by accounts of miraculous cures and graces granted by the Blessed Virgin Mary there. In this way it became one of the country’s major shrines.
As happened in many such places, the statue of Our Lady of Willesden was destroyed in 1535. The statue that is now venerated in the church was carved, from the wood of an old oak tree that grew near the ancient shrine, at the end of the nineteenth century, and solemnly crowned in the Marian Year 1954. Above it is the inscription Imago per nefas abducta, amore filiorum reducta – a statue stolen by wickedness and replaced by the love of her children. The feast of Our Lady of Willesden is celebrated on August 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption of Our Lady, and it was on that day in 1958 that St Josemaria went to Willesden to pray to our Lady.
Ireland: August 15, 1959
St Josemaria made his only visit to Ireland in the summer of 1959. It was not by chance that he arrived there on August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption. Naturally, as he always did in the countries he visited, St Josemaria filled his visit with a strong note of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and he entrusted all the apostolate being done in Ireland to our Lady’s care. While he was being driven from one place to another he sowed the roads of Ireland with Hail Marys.
Maria Laach is about seventy kilometres from Cologne in a Benedictine abbey that is frequently visited by the locals of this part of Rhineland. St Josemaria went to pray there on September 22, 1958
The first time St Josemaria went to Germany was 1949. After that he made many trips by car to Munich, Cologne, Aachen, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Mainz and Koblenz. The pictures and statues of our Lady he encountered on his way were the focus of his affectionate love and veneration for the Mother of God. These included the shrine of Maria Laach and the Mailänder Madonna or “Milan Madonna”.
Maria Laach is about seventy kilometres from Cologne in a Benedictine abbey that is frequently visited by the locals of this part of Rhineland. St Josemaria went to pray there on September 22, 1958.
The Milan Madonna is a beautiful more-than-life-size Gothic statue in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of Cologne Cathedral. St Josemaria often prayed in this cathedral and celebrated Holy Mass at an altar presided over by a famous painting by Stephan Lochner.
The Milan Madonna is a Gothic statue in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of Cologne Cathedral
After all his journeys there St Josemaria could justly say, to a group of Germans in Rome, that he knew Germany as well as they did, and that he had covered the roadways of their country with Hail Marys and songs.
Recourse to the Mother of God, Mutter Gottes, was a constant feature in the apostolic expansion that St Josemaria dreamed of. On his journeys he would visit places of long-standing devotion to our Lady to implore her protection, and he encouraged his daughters and sons to invoke her frequently.
Documentation
Related articles
Documents
List of Contents
- “I don’t want to go to Purgatory!”
- A picture that never fades from my memory
- St Josemaría Escrivá and Nazism
- St Josemaria and the Guardian Angels
- No fear!
- I saw three hundred, three hundred thousand, thirty million, three thousand million…
- March 28, 1925: Priest of Jesus Christ
- St Josemaria Escriva in Argentina
- Along the roads of Europe
- Show that you’re a Mother!
Prayer
RSS
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
YOUTUBE