Pope Francis Adds New Marian Feast to Roman Calendar

VATICAN CITY— Pope Francis has decreed that the feast of Our Lady of Loreto be included in the Roman Calendar as an optional memorial to be celebrated on Dec. 10.

“This celebration will help all people, especially families, youth and religious, to imitate the virtues of that perfect disciple of the Gospel, the Virgin Mother, who, in conceiving the Head of the Church also accepted us as her own,” Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, stated in the decree published Oct. 31.

With the decree, the optional memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Loreto must appear in all calendars and liturgical books for the celebration of the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours.

Catholic pilgrims travel to the small Italian town of Loreto to stand inside the Holy House of Mary, preserved in a basilica, in which Tradition holds that the Virgin Mary was born, raised and greeted by the Gabriel the Archangel at the Annunciation. …

Pope Francis said in Loreto March 25. “The Holy House of Mary is the ‘home of the family,’” he said during his visit, noting that “in the delicate situation of today’s world, the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman takes on an importance and an essential mission.”

In a homily in 1995, St. Pope John Paul II called the Holy House of Loreto “the house of all God’s adopted children.”

10/31/19 http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/pope-francis-adds-feast-of-our-lady-of-loreto-to-roman-calendar

The title Our Lady of Loreto refers to the Holy House of Loreto, the house in which Mary was born, and where the Annunciation occurred, and to an ancient statue of Our Lady which is found there. Tradition says that a band of angels scooped up the little house from the Holy Land, and transported it first to Tersato, Dalmatia in 1291, then Recanati, Italy in 1294, and finally to Loreto, Italy where it has been for centuries. https://catholicsaints.info/our-lady-of-loreto/ accessed 11/01/19