religious-blog-and-stuff

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Remembering Pope Francis (1936-2025)

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Matka Boska Ostrobramska

A Polish lithograph of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius, Lithuania.

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“O vos omnes, qui tránsitis per viam,

arrendire et videte,

si est dolor sicut

dolor meus.”

Stabat Mater Dolorosa,

ora pro nobis.

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9 August:

The day when the Urakami church was destroyed, and the head of Our Lady became a symbol

The first construction of the Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki took place in 1914, built and officially consecrated by the Missions Etrangères de Paris. It is the largest Catholic church in Asia, and is built by volunteers from the Nagasaki parish led by a French missionary, Father Pierre Fraineau.

In 1929, a wooden altar was placed on which was placed a wooden Madonna inspired by a painting by Murillo: the Immaculate Conception. (The painting is now in the Museo National del Prado in Madrid, Spain. On August 9, 1945 at 11:02 am in the Urakami church, there were 30 faithful and 2 priests engaged in confessions. Following the release of the "Fat man" - as this plutonium bomb was nicknamed - which exploded 500 meters from the cathedral, everyone died and the building burned due to the intensity of the heat released. The blinding nuclear flash shattered stained glass windows in an instant, caused walls to collapse, set fire to the altar and melted the bells. Of the 12,000 Catholics who made up this community, 8,500 died instantly. The total death toll in Nagasaki was around 80,000. Over the course of the year, another 60 thousand died. But not everything was destroyed.

The head of the Our Lady that became a symbol.

Kaemon Noguchi, a discharged Japanese soldier and Catholic priest, enters the ruins of Urakami Cathedral to pray. He hopes to find a tangible reminder of the church of his youth to take back to his Trappist Monastery in Hokkaido. After more than an hour of searching through the rubble, Noguchi sits down and starts praying again. And, suddenly, he notices the eyeless features of the Madonna, staring at him blindly in the midst of the dust. It is the head of a wooden statue of the Virgin that survived the atomic bomb and whose radiation still bears clear signs, no trace of the body remains. The appearance of the religious icon, devastated by the war, is impressive: the eyes of the Madonna are two scorched cavities, the melting glass eyes have streaked down her face like tears. For many faithful, that head survived in a miraculous way; for everyone it is a religious symbol of hope.

The chapel with the original head and the prototype of the statue before it was destroyed.

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The chapel inside the new Urakami Church that has the “burned Our Lady” inspired by the Immaculate Conception by Murillo, build in 1959 after the atomic bomb.

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Happy feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

*Photos from the group of the church when the community went to the little one, last Thursday*

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As memory besides the song, the item that is conserved in the church of Giglio Island, is the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, rescued after 8 days of the tragedy and donated to the church 1 month later.

The statue is visible under the Virgin Stella Maris chapel.

Since today marks the 7 year of the end of hell of the poor Concordia, I’ve made this using all the song with some parts related to the disaster.

On July 7th, 2017 the saga of the unlucky ship Costa Concordia ended. After it was refloated in July 2014, the Concordia reached the port of Genoa on 27 July of the same year to be scrapped. The operations of dismantling ended after 3 years. Of the Concordia only sad memories remains.

This incident had an huge impact especially in the music. The indie rock band Car Seat Headrest pays homage to the disaster with the song The Ballad of the Costa Concordia, included in the new album Teens of Denial, released in May 2016.

The backstory of this incredible tribute is that Will Toledo informed himself of the disaster and he was shocked and felt ache. The pain scale that he felt, has forced him to put it in the song becoming a slow ballad.

This song will always be the most important tribute to this incident.

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another spread of antique store treasures

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from mexicanfaerie on instagram

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mary in a flower crown, st gabriel of the sorrowful mother, pennsylvania, usa

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The statue of Our Lady of Fatima, that was in the little chapel inside of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, rescued successfully after 8 days the tragedy.

The statue is now placed under the Virgin Stella Maris statue in the Santi Lorenzo e Mamiliano church in Giglio Island.

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The Final Vision of Lucia Santos

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Tu Eris Super Domum Meam A mosaic fresco inside  St Peter’s Basilica, The Vatican, Rome.