Introduction
It All Started Here... On August 15, 1993, in a letter sent on the occasion of the seventh centenary of the Shrine of the Holy House of Loreto, Pope John Paul II called it “the first international sanctuary dedicated to the Virgin and, for several centuries, the true Marian heart of Christianity.” In fact, Loreto is a temple unlike many others. And not only because it has long been the most important center of Marian devotion in Italy and Europe, but above all for the precious relic it houses, and for how it arrived in the Marche region of Italy. As Saint Bernard mentioned in a splendid homily, the Holy House of Loreto is the place where the Redemption of humanity began.1 It is the very humble cell in which the most important event of history took place: the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the consequent Incarnation of the Divine Word. Among 1
You have heard, Virgin, that you will conceive and give birth to a son; you have heard that this will not happen by the work of man but by that of the Holy Spirit. The angel awaits your answer; he must take it back to God who sent him. We too, O Lady, are waiting for a word of compassion, we miserably oppressed by a sentence of damnation. Behold the price of our salvation is offered to you: if you consent, we will be immediately freed. We were all created by the eternal Word of God but are now subject to death: By your short answer, must we be renewed and brought back to life. O pious Virgin, Adam, exiled from heaven with his miserable descent, begs this of you in tears; Abraham and David, the holy patriarchs, your ancestors also living in the shadowy region of death, urgently plead with you to accept. The whole world awaits prostrated at your knees: From your mouth depends the consolation of the poor, the redemption of prisoners, the liberation of the condemned, the salvation of all the children of Adam, of all mankind” (Cf. Omelie sulla Madonna of Saint Bernard, Abbot, Hom. 4, 8-9; Opera omnia, ed. Cisterc. 4, 1966, 53-54). (Our translation.)
