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Crowning of Fatima statue

May 10, 2017
Nuncio hails religious art
May 10, 2017
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May 10, 2017

The annual series of Marian devotions begin next Saturday at the Laventille Shrine from 2.30 p.m. At the May 13 devotions there will be a coronation of the statue of Our Lady of Fatima. Archbishop Joseph Harris issued the following statement for the special occasion:

Even as the church celebrates the new breath of life that has motivated the faithful, the Archbishop’s Appeal has begun a new project to further the cause of the faith.

Following a phenomenal event known as the Miracle of the Sun in 1917, Portuguese sculptor Guilherme Ferreria Thedim carved, in 1949, a likeness of the Virgin Mary as described by Lucia, one of three children, who saw the apparition at Fatima, Portugal.

The year after the sightings an influenza epidemic claimed the lives of the two younger children, Francisco and Jacinta, (who will both be canonised by Pope Francis this year during the Feast of Fatima). The third, a girl named Lucia, would survive to write her memoirs and guide the artist in recreating the image of Our Lady of Fatima out of oak.

The eight-and-a-half-foot statue is delicately plastered in the gentle hues that adorned our Lady, as she hovered above the Holm Oak tree where she was revealed to the children. Its base contains a sample of soil from the spot at Cova da Iria where the apparition appeared and remnants of the Holm Oak tree upon which the Blessed Mother appeared; this true relic now belongs to the people of Trinidad and Tobago.

During the 1980s, Fr Cusack, the priest charged with the care of the statue, began the process of finding a permanent home for Thedim’s Queen of Peace. His efforts would spark the quest that would ultimately be the final step in the Queen of Peace’s passage from the hands of the faithful in Fatima, Lisbon, Dublin and Dundalk to the heart of the people of Trinidad and Tobago.

On December 31, the statue of Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima commenced a Journey of Peace. The statue visits parishes and schools across Trinidad and Tobago. To date people of all faiths have come together in prayer and in veneration of the Blessed Mother .

Rosaries are freely distributed and we have witnessed constant repetition of the Rosary wherever the statue visits as the Blessed Mother is asked to intercede and bring peace to our home. The Journey of Peace continues until December 2017.

In this the 100th Year of the Apparitions, join us as we crown the Queen of Peace on May 13 during the devotions of the Feast of Fatima, at the National Fatima Shrine in Laventille. Celebrations start at 2.30 p.m.  Come and join us in devotions to Our Lady asking for her to intercede for peace in Trinidad and Tobago and the whole world.

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JOSEPH HARRIS
Archbishop of Port of Spain