Photos of St Mary of Mercy Fatima Family Shrine Alexandria Sd

Not all American Catholics have the time and money to brand a pilgrimage to Fatima, Portugal, where Mary appeared to three shepherd children, Lúcia Santos and her cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Morta.

However, they can experience Fatima at the Fatima Family Shrine in Alexandria, Due south.D., a beautiful sanctuary few have heard of just off of I-90.

A pop destination for family unit vacations is the Blackness Hills. Catholics driving w to experience the Badlands, Mount Rushmore and other sights should devote a couple of hours in Alexandria.

Located nigh an hour west of Sioux Falls, the largest urban center in the Dakotas, and 15 minutes east of Mitchell, home to the tourist trap known as "The Globe's Simply Corn Palace," Alexandria looks like whatever other modest town in the Great Plains. Anyone who'due south grown up in the Midwest knows what it looks similar: The tallest edifice is the grain elevator, and the town's life focuses on Master Street.

However, Alexandria is unique. In the centre of town is a Marian shrine that was dedicated by Bishop Alberto Amaral of Leiria-Fátima on Sept. 27, 1987 — equally 1987 was proclaimed a Marian yr by Pope St. John Paul II — from the initiative of Father Robert Fox (1928-2009).

Father Fox outset thought of building the shrine ii years prior. This priest — who organized Marian congresses in South Dakota, edited the Immaculate Heart Messenger, directed the Earth Apostolate of Fatima and oftentimes appeared on EWTN — was committed to spreading the message Mary imparted in Fatima: that she will relieve the world from disaster if we pray the Rosary and live according to Catholic values. Father Play a joke on funded the shrine's building from the sales of his books and some donations.

Prayerful Identify

At the base of the Fatima Family Shrine are soil and stone from the verbal place next to the oak tree where Mary appeared to the three children in Portugal. The shrine features iv chapels made of South Dakota granite, each with Portuguese marble statues of the Holy Family unit, Jesus and the angel equally he appeared to the children. Fifteen gilt stars are institute in the backdrops of stained glass, representing mysteries of the Rosary.

Next to the shrine, in that location is also the so-chosen Penitential Path. At its kickoff, there is a 12-human foot granite cross that was erected in the Jubilee Year 2000 and blessed by Bishop Robert Carlson, then-bishop of Sioux Falls (presently, he is archbishop of St. Louis).

The most inspiring part of the Penitential Path is the Pope and Martyrs' Shrine. It is topped by a majestic marble sculpture of Pope St. John Paul Two. Although he survived two assassination attempts, this pope was a truthful symbol of the martyred Church building of the by century, himself coming from the persecuted Shine Church and often defending persecuted Catholics. He is surrounded by busts of four outstanding Catholics who gave their lives in the name of Christian virtues: St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan who volunteered to give his life in a starvation bunker for another inmate at Auschwitz; St. Gianna Beretta Molla, an Italian doctor who gave up her life to save her unborn girl's life in the 1960s, during the "sexual revolution"; Blest Miguel Pro, a mettlesome Mexican Jesuit arrested and shot for evangelizing his flock by United mexican states's anti-clerical authorities in the 1920s; and St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, built-in Edith Stein, a Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism and was killed in Auschwitz after the Nazis decided to exterminate Jewish-Catholic converts as a vendetta against the Dutch bishops' protestation confronting the genocide of the Jews.

Next, there is the Pro-Life Shrine. Information technology features Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas. When Our Lady appeared to Indian peasant Juan Diego in Mexico in 1531, she asked that a Marian shrine exist built in the place of a temple dedicated to an Aztec goddess, where human being sacrifices were made. Only every bit Mary asked the Mexican people to supercede a pagan civilization with business concern for man dignity almost 500 years ago, she again asks us to reject what Pope Francis has called the "throwaway culture" of Planned Parenthood and anti-family legislation with what Blest Paul Half dozen called "a civilization of honey."

At the decision of the Penitential Path is a statue of the Affections of the Family, consecrated by Archbishop Tadesuz Kondrusiewicz (and then the churchly administrator for European Russia; today he leads the persecuted Belarusan Church every bit archbishop of Minsk), also as Stations of the Cross.

The shrine is located next to the Catholic parish of St. Mary of Mercy, a lovely church made of Due south Dakota granite. Within, 1 can discover a replica of the statue of Mary constitute in Fatima.

When Father Play tricks organized Marian Congresses in Alexandria, Fatima candlelight processions left from the church. Since and so, they have ceased, although the electric current pastor of St. Mary's, Male parent Dana Christensen, promises they volition come back in 2017 for the centenary of the Fatima apparitions.

Beyond the street from the church building, there is a convent where cloistral Discalced Carmelite nuns piece of work and pray. At that place as well is a bookstore where visitors can choose from the standard Ignatius Press inventory available at most American Cosmic bookstores, holy cards and the 50 books that Father Robert Fox wrote, the profits from which helped fund the shrine.

Having read about this beautiful Marian shrine in America's Heartland, you might logically assume that this place is inundated with pilgrims from across the Midwest. Unfortunately, this is not the instance. The Fatima Family Shrine receives no publicity apart from 2 billboards on I-90. It doesn't fifty-fifty have its own website or Facebook page. This is unfortunate, given the intense religious inspiration visiting here can bring. Furthermore, the shrine is maintained mostly thanks to freewill donations.

So, the adjacent time you're planning a family holiday in the Black Hills, be certain to stop by the Fatima Family unit Shrine. Short of traveling to Fatima or other peachy European Marian shrines, you won't have an feel like this anywhere else.

Register correspondent Filip Mazurczak is from South Dakota.

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Source: https://www.ncregister.com/news/finding-fatima-in-the-dakotas