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marian
anniversaries june
 June 11
Our Lady of Awaiting, Maghdouché, Sidon, South Governorate, Lebanon
While Jesus preached in Sidon, Mary is said to have waited here in the
cave of Mantara ("awaiting" in Arabic). Emperor Constantine's
wife Helena replaced Astarte's shrine here with one to the Holy Mother,
donating to it an icon and altar furnishings. Three centuries later, after
takeover by an intolerant Arab ruler, Christians sealed up the cave and
fled Maghdouché. In 1683, descendants of the exiles returned to their
homeland under the inclusive Prince Fakhreddin II. On September 8, 1721,
when a goat fell through a gap in the porous limestone, its young herder
made a rope from vine twigs, tied it to a tree, and followed the animal
into the hole, but the rope broke. The boy fell into the darkness, where
eventually he made out the golden glimmer of an icon of the Madonna and
Child. On seeing the image, the Melkite Catholic clergy recognized it as
St. Helen's icon.
Christians now celebrate its rediscovery annually on September
8, Feast of
the Virgin's Birth. A cathedral was added to the site in 1860 and a modern
tower topped with a bronze statue in the 1960s. On June 11, 1911, some 400
people saw a silent, luminous apparition of the Madonna and Child near the cave. Our Lady of
Awaiting is invoked for the healing of eye
diseases and the protection of children, so the shrine is a popular site
for infant baptisms.
Sources:
Also celebrated this date:
 | Notre-Dame-du-Bon-Secours, Val-d'Izé, Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany, France
(Our Lady of Good Help). Current church blessed, 1884. |
| Notre-Dame des Ardilliers, Saumur, Maine-et-Loire, Pays de la Loire, France.
First stone of
chapel placed, 1634. |
| Notre Dame de Pibèque, Castelnau d'Auzan, Gers, Occitanie,
France. Chapel dedicated, 1889, on site of old miraculous spring.
Pilgrimage August 15. |
| Madonna di Viganale, Montecrestese, Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, Piedmont, Italy.
Festa commemorates fresco's bleeding June 11, 1651. |
| Madonna dei Miracoli, Casalbordino, Chieti, Abruzzo, Italy. Apparition,
1576; painting crowned, 1899. |
| Santa Maria della Purità, Oppido Lucano, Potenza, Basilicata, Italy.
Statue crowned, 1939. |
| Matka Boze Fatimska, Szczecin, West Pomerania, Poland. Pope John
Paul II
crowned statue, 1987. |
| Mother of God “Surety of sinners,” Karachev, Bryansk, Russia (Julian
calendar May 29) |
| Virgen de la Capilla, Jaén, Andalucia, Spain. Fiesta commemorates
apparition June 11, 1430. |
| St Mary-le-Bow, London, England, UK. Church bombed in 1941, rebuilt, reconsecrated June 11,
1964. |
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