marian anniversaries     september

September 18

Mariatrost, Graz, Styria, Austria

In the 1100s, according to some histories, crusaders brought a piece of the Holy Cross home to Graz, where it was installed in a hilltop chapel under the name Heiliges Kreuz zum Landestrost, Holy Cross of the Land of Consolation. After Turkish invaders destroyed the shrine complex in 1480, the hill became known as Purberg, Bald Mountain. 

In 1636, Baron Johann Maximilian von Wilferstorf built a small castle on the hill, with a chapel to Saints Anna and Joachim, Mary's parents. In 1676, the Abbot of Rein (now the oldest remaining Cistercian foundation) gave the family a statue of Mary from the baron's brother's cell. After it was installed in the Purberg chapel, the standing Gothic Madonna and Child of 1465 became known as a gnadenbild, image of grace. In 1689, Franz Caspar Conduzzi von Heldenfeld bought the property and began promoting the shrine under the title Heilige Maria zum Landestrost or Maria Trost, St. Mary of Consolation. Pilgrims began coming there from a wide region. It was said that the owner's daughter recovered from a terminal illness after prayers before the statue. Pilgrims left ex-votos in thanks for cures of their own. In 1708, Conduzzi turned over the chapel to the Pauline Fathers, who commissioned a new church on the hill. Emperor Charles VI placed the first stone September 18, 1714. Declared a Minor Basilica by Pope John Paul II in 1999, Mariatrost celebrates its patronal feast on September 8, the Nativity of the Virgin. Now run as a parish church by diocesan priests, the Baroque church remains a place of pilgrimage for both tourists and believers. 

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