Third Sunday in June
Notre-Dame, Gardienne de la Foi, Bourguillon, Fribourg, Switzerland
On the third Sunday of June every year, the day of the sick brings some 250 pilgrims to the hilltop shrine on the site of a former leper colony overlooking the city of Fribourg. In 1438, authorities organized a pilgrimage there to pray for the healing of their ruler, Frederick IV, Duke of Austria, of the house of Hapsburg. The famous leper was healed. After that, the madonna in the hospital chapel became a magnet for pilgrims and was placed in a special chapel outside the leprosarium. During the Reformation, Catholics made frequent pilgrimages to the shrine to pray for the saving of their faith in the area. Our Lady received the title Guardian of the Faith when those prayers were answered, and Catholicism not only persisted in the canton, but revived. The standing statue of the Virgin and Child, object of popular devotion for six centuries, was made in Cologne in the second quarter of the 1300s and canonically crowned October 8, 1923.
Source: www.cathedrale-fribourg.ch
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