February 19: Our Lady of Good Tidings, Lempdes, France (1500’s)
| No Greater Delight
catholicvoice
The Abbot Orsini wrote: “Our Lady of Good Tidings, near Rouen, where a great number of people are seen, particularly on Saturdays.”
It was on December 23rd, 1563, when the bishop of Lucon, Jean-Baptiste Tiercelin, consecrated the church under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin, Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Nouvelle. This first chapel came into the world in the midst of religious convulsions that were then taking place in Switzerland, Germany, and England by the leaders of the ‘Reformation,’ and must necessarily be seen as an action bravely going against the tide. The religious wars that began raging in France ten years after its erection began to be another reason for some concern for faithful Catholics, but the pilgrimages to the church of Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Nouvelle continued undisturbed. From time immemorial there had been venerated at Notre Dame a statue of the Blessed Virgin, holding in …More