Wednesday 10 December 2025
Blessed Virgin Mary of Loreto
Isaiah 40:25-31. O bless the Lord, my soul – Ps 102(103):1-4, 8, 10. Matthew 11:28-30.
God bless our homes and those who live in them
Today we celebrate the Blessed Virgin Mother Mary of Loreto. This is an unusual feast day that twins this with the Nazareth house in which she was born and raised, where she said yes to Gabriel at the Annunciation and where she lived with Joseph and her divine and human son, Jesus. Tradition tells us that this simple home, measuring just nine-and-a-half by four metres, was transported after the Crusades and settled in Loreto on the Adriatic coast of Italy in 1294. It is the third most visited Marian shrine in Europe after Lourdes and Fatima. Saint John Paul II visited here and spoke of this humble home ‘as a temple on which shone the light of maternity of the Mother of God’. Let us pray the beautiful medieval prayer the Litany of Loreto and ask God to bless our own humble homes and all who live in them.
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