The Blessed Virgin Mary (Part Eleven).

Text and Illustrations taken from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.

Luciano Pavarotti singing 

Schubert's "Ave Maria".

Available on YouTube at 

http://youtu.be/bPvAQxZsgpQ.

Marian Art enjoys a significant level of diversity, e.g., with distinct styles of Statues of the Virgin Mary present on different Continents (as depicted in the Galleries in Roman Catholic Marian Art). These depictions are not restricted to European Art, and also appear in South American paintings. The South American tradition of Marian veneration, through Art, dates back to the 16th-Century, with the Virgin of Copacabana gaining fame in 1582.

Marian Movements and Societies.

Throughout the centuries, the devotion to, and the veneration of, the Virgin Mary by Roman Catholics has both led to, and been influenced by, a number of Roman Catholic Marian Movements and Societies. These Societies form part of the fabric of Roman Catholic Mariology. As early as the 16th-Century, the Holy See endorsed the Sodality of Our Lady and Pope Gregory XIII issued a Papal Bull, commending it and granting it Indulgences, and establishing it as the Mother Sodality, and other Sodalities were formed, thereafter.

The 18th- and 19th-Centuries saw a number of missionary Marian organisations, such as: Company of Mary; the Marianists; Marist Fathers; and Marist Brothers. Some of these missionaries, e.g., Saint Peter Chanel, were Martyred as they travelled to new lands. The 20th-Century witnessed the formation of Marian organisations with millions of members, e.g., the Legion of Mary and Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima.

Maria Callas singing Ave Maria.

Available on YouTube at 

http://youtu.be/l5cF5GGqVWo.

Marian Shrines and Patronages.

In the Roman Catholic Church, a Shrine is a Church or sacred place which receives many faithful Pilgrims for a specific pious reason. The local Ordinary must approve the Shrine.

Marian Shrines account for major veneration centres and Pilgrimage sites for Roman Catholics. According to Bishop Francesco Giogia, at the end of the 20th-Century, the most visited Catholic Shrine in the world was that of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City. In third place was Our Lady of Aparecida, in Brazil, with the non-Marian Shrine of San Giovanni Rotondo in second place. The visual effect of Marian Pilgrimages can be dramatic, e.g., on 13 May and 13 October of each year, close to one million Catholic Pilgrims walk the country road that leads to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima. Around 2 million Pilgrims journey up Tepeyac Hill on 12 December, each year, to visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. While, in 1968,  Aparecida had about four million Pilgrims, the number has since reached eight million Pilgrims per year.

Portuguese: Santuário Nacional de Aparecida, localizado em Aparecida, SP - Brasil.

English: National Sanctuary of Aparecida, located in Aparecida, SP - Brazil.

The Marian Basilica of Our Lady of Aparecida, Brazil. 

The largest Church in the Americas.

Photo: 9 May 2007.

Source: Agência Brasil (ABr/RadioBrás)[1].

Author: Valter Campanato/ABr.

Permission: This photograph was produced by Agência Brasil, a public Brazilian news agency.

Their website states: "Todo o conteúdo deste site está publicado 

sob a Licença Creative Commons Atribuição 3.0 Brasil ".

(The content of this website is published under the 

Creative Commons License Attribution 3.0 Brazil).

(Wikimedia Commons)

Major Marian Shrines include:

The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, in Lourdes, France;
The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Mexico City, Mexico;
The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima, in Fátima, Portugal;
The Basilica of the Holy House in Loreto, Italy;
The Shrine of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa, in Częstochowa, Poland;
The Basilica of Our Lady, Queen of Ireland, in Knock, Ireland.

There are other Marian Pilgrimage sites, such as Medjugorje, which is not considered a Shrine by the Holy See, but, yet, receives a large number of Pilgrims every year. The number of Pilgrims, who visit some of the approved Shrines every year, can be significant. e.g., Lourdes, with a population of around 15,000 people, receives about 5,000,000 Pilgrims every year. 

In 1881, a French priest, Julien Gouyet, led by the Visions of Jesus and Mary of the Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (Klemens Brentano, 1852), discovered the House of the Virgin Mary, near Ephesus in Turkey.

A number of countries, cities and professions consider the Blessed Virgin their Patron Saint. For a list, see Patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

THIS CONCLUDES THE ARTICLE ON THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY.