Basilian Sisters to host annual pilgrimage (05/05/02)

Basilian Sisters to host annual pilgrimage

FOX CHASE MANOR, Pa. - On Saturday and Sunday, May 11-12, the Sisters of St. Basil the Great will once again host a pilgrimage honoring the Mother of God, continuing a tradition that has brought spiritual fulfillment to thousands of faithful for nearly three-quarters of a century.

While pilgrims will see much that is familiar, this year's pilgrimage will hold a number of surprises, beginning with a special Moleben Akathist and an Anointing and Healing Ceremony on May 11.

For many Catholic faithful, Marian pilgrimages, those dedicated to honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary, are especially poignant and spiritually uplifting. Every year, millions travel to Fatima, where the Mother of God appeared to three small children and asked them to pray for peace. Others journey to Guadalupe, Mexico, where the Virgin appeared to a poor Indian, or to a small convent near Akita, Japan, where she appeared to one of the sisters in 1973. Still others travel to Czestochowa or to Lourdes, where the Blessed Virgin is venerated as healer and protector.

While often disrupted by political upheavals and virtually curtailed by a Communist regime determined to obliterate all religious symbols and religious observances from the country's landscape, the tradition of Marian pilgrimages has also flourished in Ukraine. One of the most famous of Ukrainian Marian shrines is in the western Ukrainian village of Zarvanytsia, established in the 13th century by a young monk who escaped from his Tatar captors after praying to the Mother of God for deliverance.

In a clearing in the midst of a deep forest, the monk discovered an icon suspended above a spring. A monastery was built on the site, the waters of the spring, proved to be miraculous, and countless thousands of pilgrims have traveled to the shrine to seek blessings ever since.

The Marian shrine of the Sisters of St. Basil the Great, though modest and humble when juxtaposed with these better known pilgrimage sites, has significant ties to two of them. Through the Ukrainian and Basilian heritage, its history is closely bound to the history of Zarvanytsia.

Its ties to another famous Marian shrine were forged through a more recent history. Located in the Pyrenees Mountains of France, in a terrain marked by caves and caverns and hidden springs, is the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes. It was here that in 1858, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a 14-year-old girl named Bernadette. Instructed by the Blessed Mother to dig for water, Bernadette dug until water gushed from an underground spring. The waters from that spring are said to have miraculous healing powers and millions of pilgrims travel to this hallowed site every year.

Lourdes, so remote from Fox Chase, Pa., and so culturally distinct from the Byzantine Catholic Rite of the Sisters of St. Basil, is nonetheless an important part of the history of the sisters' Marian shrine. In 1926, Provincial Superior Mother Josaphat, bought a piece of property that consisted of 130 acres of land and a farm cottage that the sisters called home. When Mother Josaphat decided that it was time to build a real motherhouse, financial obstacles and other difficulties threatened the project. It was to Our Lady of Lourdes that Mother Josaphat prayed for strength and guidance, and in due time, the motherhouse was built. On the grounds of the property near the motherhouse was a small spring house where the waters of five underground springs converged. Mother Josaphat, in gratitude for the success of the building of the new motherhouse, promised Our Lady of Lourdes to build a grotto over this springhouse, and so it came to pass.

In 1931, the first pilgrimage to the grotto took place; it was a private devotion for the Sodality of St. Basil Academy students. There was a procession to the grotto followed by a moleben service. The next Sunday, Mother's Day, the girls invited their mothers to join them in this ceremony - 12 girls and 12 mothers participated.

Seventy-one years later, the pilgrimage attracts hundreds of mothers and daughters and fathers and sons.

An icon of the Mother of God and the Christ Child, a religious artifact so meaningful to Ukrainian Catholics throughout the world, is enshrined in the grotto. It is a reproduction of the miraculous Icon of the Mother of God of Pochaiv, the original of which remains in the Pochaiv Monastery nestled in the Kremenets Mountain range.

Attracting thousands of pilgrims to the annual celebration of the Feast of the Assumption, it was once owned by a wealthy and influential Ukrainian noblewoman, whose blind brother was given the gift of sight after praying before the icon. As a gesture of her gratitude, the noblewoman presented the icon to Pochaiv's Basilian monastery in the 16th century.

In 1675 the icon is believed to have caused an attacking Turkish army to retreat from Pochaiv, leaving the monastery and its inhabitants unharmed. Other miracles followed and were authenticated by the Holy See in 1773. The replica of the Pochaiv Icon was installed by the Sisters of St. Basil the Great in 2001 and has become a focus of great interest for pilgrims.

During the 2002 pilgrimage, the faithful will once again have the opportunity to attend divine liturgy, receive the sacraments of reconciliation and the Holy Eucharist, and pray for the intentions of the Holy Father. Pilgrims who participate in these acts of faith will be granted a plenary indulgence.

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