Sarah Goldsmith- Our Lady of Loreto (Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture)

This past Thursday was the optional memorial of Our Lady of Loreto. When I had seen this I was curious about this iteration of Mary, as I have never heard of her. Upon doing some brief reading I realized that she was associated with the Holy House of Nazareth. Victor and Edith Turner discussed this story in Images and pilgrimage in Christian Culture. The story goes that shepards in Loreto found a small church that was not there before that held a statue of the virgin. Victor and Edith Turner said, "Soon afterward, Nicolo Frangipane, the governor of Dalmatia, sent envoys to Nazareth who verified the story, saying that the Holy House was no longer at Nazareth, and that the dimensions of the little house at Tersatto agreed exactly with those of a foundation they could see beneath the Basilica of the Annunciation" (p. 178-179).

What is so interesting about this story is that Loreto is not the only location that the Holy House of Nazareth has been. The English claim that the house has been at Walsingham. While unusual that a house would up and move, these sites have been locations of the sacred and sites of pilgrimages. Pope Francis even validated this devotion to the Holy House by recognizing our Lady of Loreto in 2019. While I have a hard time believing that these locations hold the original house, I believe that there is something special and sacred about these locations that causes people to undertake a pilgrimage to these places.

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