April 26th - Our Lady of Good Counsel

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Our Lady of Good Counsel

From the Catholic Encyclopedia 1911

Records dating from the reign of Paul II (1464-1471) relate that the picture of Our Lady, at first called La Madonna del Paradiso and now better known as Madonna del Buon Consiglio, appeared at Genazzano, a town about twenty-five miles southeast of Rome, on Saint Mark's Day, 25 April 1467, in the old church of Santa Maria, which had been under the care of Augustinians since 1356. The venerated icon itself, which is drawn on a thin scale of wall-plaster little thicker than a visiting-card, was observed to hang suspended in the air without the slightest apparent support; early tradition, tells how one might have passed a thread around the image without touching it. Devotion to Our Lady in Santa Maria sprang up at once. Pilgrim bands began to pour in; while miracles in ever-increasing numbers were wrought, and continue to be, at the shrine.

In July following, Pope Paul deputed two bishops to investigate the alleged wonder-working image; no copy of their report is known to have survived. The cult of Our Lady increased. In 1630 Urban VIII himself went to Genazzano on a pilgrimage, as did Pius IX in 1864. On 17 November 1682 Innocent XI had the picture crowned with gold by the Vatican Basilica. In 1727 Pope Benedict XIII granted the clergy of Genazzano an Office and Mass of Our Lady for 25 April, the anniversary of the apparition, elsewhere the feast being kept a day later so as not to conflict with that of Saint Mark the Evangelist. On 2 July 1753 Benedict XIV approved of the Pious Union of Our Lady of Good Counsel for the faithful at large, and himself enrolled therein as its pioneer member; Pius IX was a member, and also Leo XIII. On 18 December 1779, Pius VI, while re-approving the cult of Our Lady, granted all Augustinians an Office with hymns, lessons, prayer and Mass proper of double-major rite; with a plenary indulgence also for the faithful, to which Pius VIII added another for visitors to the shrine. On 18 December 1884, Leo XIII approved of a new Office and Mass of second-class rite for all Augustinians, while on 17 March 1903, he elevated the church of Santa Maria - one of the four parish churches at Genazzano - to the rank of minor basilica. On 22 April following he authorized the insertion in the Litany of Loreto of the invocation Mater Boni Consillii to follow that of Mater Admirabilis. The same pontiff, ten years earlier (21 December 1893) had sanctioned the use of the White Scapular of Our Lady of Good Counsel for the faithful. In the United States there are many churches and institutions in honour of Our Lady of Good Counsel.

- Thomas C. Middleton, from the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright 1911; Nihil Obstat, 1 February 1911, Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor; Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York; moderately rewritten by Terry H Jone