The original statue of Our Lady of Fatima will make a rare journey from its shrine in Portugal to Rome in October for a Jubilee celebration of Marian spirituality. Source: CNS.
The statue will be present in St Peter’s Square on October 12 for the closing Mass of the Jubilee of Marian Spirituality, the Vatican has announced.
The statue has embedded in its crown one of the bullets from the attempted assassination of St John Paul II in 1981.
A Turkish gunman shot the pope on May 13, the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, and the Polish pope credited her with saving his life. He travelled to Fatima the next year to offer his thanks in person.
The Marian jubilee will offer pilgrims the chance to cross the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica and partake in a prayer vigil at the Basilica of St Mary Major in Rome – considered the oldest Marian shrine in the West
According to Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelisation, the statue’s visit will allow the faithful to “experience the closeness of the Virgin Mary” in a special way. Quoting Pope Francis’ Jubilee Bull of Indiction, “Spes non confundit” (“Hope does not disappoint”), he recalled how Mary is venerated as “the most affectionate of mothers, who never abandons her children.”
The Jubilee will be only the fourth time the statue has left the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima for Rome. The first occasion was in 1984 when St John Paul II consecrated the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It returned during the Holy Year 2000 and again in 2013 for the Year of Faith, which marked 50 years since the opening of the Second Vatican Council.
Carved in 1920 from Brazilian cedar by Portuguese sculptor José Ferreira Thedim, the 104-centimeter-tall statue was crafted based on descriptions from the three shepherd children who claimed to witness the Marian apparitions in 1917. It was solemnly crowned in 1946.
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Fatima statue to visit Rome for Jubilee of Marian Spirituality (By Justin McLellan, CNS)
