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marian
anniversaries december
 December 24
St. Mary, Stevensville, Montana, USA
On the night of December 24, 1841, not long after Fr. Pierre De Smet started St. Mary's mission with the
Bitterroot Salish (Flatheads) in Montana, an orphan boy went to an old woman's tipi to
study prayers in preparation for baptism Christmas day. As Little Paul,
11, told Fr. De Smet not long afterwards, he saw someone wonderful
there: "Her feet did not touch the earth, her garments were as white
as snow; she had a star over her head, a serpent under her feet; and near
the serpent was a fruit which I did not recognize. I could see her heart,
from which rays of light burst forth and shone upon me. When I first
beheld all this I was frightened, but afterward my fear left me; my heart
was warmed, my mind clear, and I do not know how it happened, but all at
once I knew my prayers." Unsure if the radiant visitor was a man or
woman, Little Paul said that the same person had come to him in sleep,
"pleased that the first village of the Flatheads should be called
'St. Mary.'" Fr. De Smet identified the boy's helper as the Blessed
Virgin, and the following year, on May 31, had a statue erected at the
apparition site, dedicated in procession on Corpus Christi as Our Lady of
Prayer. Sadly, within ten years Little Paul was dead and the mission
closed. Jesuits built a new St. Mary's Church there in 1866, which closed
in turn in 1891 after the last of the Bitterroot Salish were moved to a
reservation 45 miles north. In 1921 St. Mary's reopened as a parish
church. The chapel of 1866 has been renovated as part of St. Mary's
Historic Mission, a nondenominational tourist attraction run by a private
foundation. Next door is St. Mary's Parish Catholic church, built in 1954,
with stained-glass windows depicting the mission's history. A Salish pilgrimage on the Sunday nearest September 24 commemorates the
mission's founding in 1841.
Sources include:
 | Photo of stained-glass window depicting the apparition to Little
Paul, www.stmarysparishstevensvillemt.org |
| DeSmet, Father Pierre-Jean, S.J., Life, Letters and Travels, 1801-1873, Francis P. Harper, New
York, NY, 1905; Kraus Reprint Co., New York, NY, 1969 |
| Historic St.
Mary's Mission, www.saintmarysmission.org |
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Also commemorated this date:
| Christmas Eve |
| Militia Sanctae Mariae (Knights of Our Lady), Roman Catholic Church.
Confraternity established, 1964. |
| Nuestra Señora de Belén, Belén, Buenos Aires, Argentina (Our Lady of
Bethlehem) |
| Notre Dame des Potiers, Chartres de Bretagne, Ile et Vilaine, Brittany,
France. Apparition, year unknown. |
| Notre Dame de Plaine Fleurie, Meylan, Isère, Rhône-Alpes, France. First
mass in new church, 1969. |
| Madonna von Stalingrad, Berlin, Germany. Dr. Kurt Reuber drew charcoal
image for trapped German troops, 1942. |
| Virgen de Belén, Granada, Andalucia, Spain (Virgin of Bethlehem).
Procession in cloister of Monasterio de S. Jerónimo (formerly). |
| Wonder-Working
Mother of God, Krasnopuscha, Berezhany, Ternopil, Ukraine |
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