marian anniversaries     october

Fourth Sunday in October

Madonna delle Grazie, Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy

When Sir John Emo was serving as Venetian ambassador to Constantinople, Sultan Mohammed II gave him a Byzantine-style icon of the Virgin nursing the Child. In 1479, Sir Emo became Lieutenant of Udine, a city in northeast Italy then under the Republic of Venice, bringing the icon with him to the governor's castle. Not long afterward, one of the palace cooks nearly lost a hand in the kitchen, but it healed when touched to the image. News of the miracle inspired popular devotion, so Sir Emo decided to move the image to the Church of Sts. Gervais and Protasius, where it entered in procession September 8, 1479. By 1495, the church was too small for all the pilgrims, and a new one was begun, consecrated to Our Lady of Graces May 12, 1520 and run by the Servants of Mary. On September 6, 1870 the Catholic Church crowned the icon; in 1922, it named the shrine a Minor Basilica. On the fourth Sunday of October, the city both fulfills and renews a vow made during the plague of 1555. The Madonna delle Grazie is also credited with saving the region from the plague of 1599, the cholera of 1836, and the bombardment of 1944. 

Sources: 

the Basilica's website, www.bvgrazie.it. 
"Udine (UD) - Madonna delle Grazie," Filiconia Mariana,  immaginettemariane.blogspot.com/2016/05/madonna-delle-grazie-di-udine.html

Also commemorated this date:

Madonna del Santo Rosario, Spino al Brembo, Zogno, Bergamo, Lombardia, Italy. Festa.
Madonna del Perello, Selvino, Bergamo, Lombardia, Italy, shrine on Mount Perello. Pilgrimage of surrounding parishes.
Madonna della Purità, Soveria Mannelli, Catanzaro, Calabria, Italy. Festa.
Virgen del Rosario, Huaraz, Huaraz, Peru. Fiesta of Mama Llusha in the Nicrupampa district.
Virgen de Cuatrovitas, Bollullos de la Mitación, Sevilla, Andalucia, Spain (Virgin of Four Lives). Romería: statue processes by oxcart to rural shrine to stay until July 25.
 

Where We Walked ~~~ Mary Ann Daly