marian anniversaries     june

Notre-Dame du Chêne, Viroflay, Yvelines, Ile-de-France, France

In the 1850s, students at the Seminary of Foreign Missions in Paris affixed to an oak in the Forest of Meudon a niche containing a statuette of "Our Lady of Aspiring Missionaries" and adopted the custom of going to pray and sing there on outings. In 1865, a cholera epidemic raged in the area, killing many children; but in Viroflay, after people turned to Our Lady of the Oak, only 1 in 1000 died. When the spot remained a place of public pilgrimage, the seminarians moved their devotion to other trees. In the 1950s, Catholics of Viroflay decided to build a new parish church, consolidating small congregations on the left and right banks of the Seine. The first stone was laid June 19, 1960. An enormous inverted wooden hull, topped with twin spires, the Church of Our Lady of the Oak was dedicated April 16, 1966. It houses an African teak Virgin and child by sculptor Jacques Coquillay. The parish celebrates its Marian feast on December 8, feast of the Immaculate Conception.