June 16
Zu Unserer Lieben Frau, Schönenberg, Ellwangen, Swabia, Germany
In 1639 Jesuits built a Loretto chapel on Schönenberg hill, outside the city of Ellwangen. Its presiding statue, though, was not the Black Madonna of Loretto, but a copy of Notre-Dame de Foy. Found in an oak tree in 1609, the Gothic standing statue of Our Lady of Faith had become the focus of a new shrine dedicated in Dinant, Belgium in 1626, and of the Jesuits' counter-reformation mission to Protestant Europe. In 1681, lightning sparked a great fire in Ellwangen, whose ruler vowed to rebuild Our Dear Lady's shrine on Schönenberg if she would stop the blaze. The prayer answered, groundbreaking took place June 16, 1682. After another fire in 1709, the church was restored in magnificent Baroque style. It was reconsecrated in 1729. Since 1948, there has been an annual pilgrimage in May or June; 60th anniversary pilgrimage June 1, 2008. (Detail of 1909 postcard from germania-catholica.blogspot.com.)
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