About a month ago, as you know, our new statue of the Blessed Mother arrived for the center of the Atrium Gardens! I want to once again thank the parishioners who donated her, along with those who donated the beautiful new granite benches and those parishioners who have donated for the landscaping – we are blessed to have tremendously generous parishioners here at St. Mary’s and the fruits of that generosity can be seen very clearly.
I wanted to give a brief background on the statue itself. This particular statue is based on a statue known as Sedes Sapientiae, which is Latin for “Seat of Wisdom,” one of the titles given to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The original statue was carved in Italy in the 1930s for St. Edward Seminary in Kenmore, Washington. When that seminary closed in the 1970s, the original was transferred to the Cathedral of St. James in Seattle where it is placed in a courtyard near a flowing fountain. The company which manufactured our statue has done three reproductions throughout the country prior to ours. She is made of granite, stands life-size at 5’ 10” tall and weighs in at a very “un-life-size” two thousand pounds!
We are going to dedicate the statue on the evening of our annual May Crowning and everyone is invited to attend. May Crowning is a beautiful tradition throughout the world and at St. Mary’s and begins at 6:30pm on Thursday, May 12th, the eve of the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima. Following the May Crowning in church we will process to the Atrium Gardens and the statue will be dedicated, please mark your calendars and plan to join us!
This weekend we are also celebrating First Communion for our parish second graders, please be sure to keep them in prayer! This is also the final month of school for our 8th Graders, please pray for them as they complete their time in grade school and prepare for graduation and high school. Finally, as I mentioned last weekend, please keep the priests of the Archdiocese in prayer over the next few days as we head out for our annual Spring Assembly of Priests.
I wanted to give a brief background on the statue itself. This particular statue is based on a statue known as Sedes Sapientiae, which is Latin for “Seat of Wisdom,” one of the titles given to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The original statue was carved in Italy in the 1930s for St. Edward Seminary in Kenmore, Washington. When that seminary closed in the 1970s, the original was transferred to the Cathedral of St. James in Seattle where it is placed in a courtyard near a flowing fountain. The company which manufactured our statue has done three reproductions throughout the country prior to ours. She is made of granite, stands life-size at 5’ 10” tall and weighs in at a very “un-life-size” two thousand pounds!
We are going to dedicate the statue on the evening of our annual May Crowning and everyone is invited to attend. May Crowning is a beautiful tradition throughout the world and at St. Mary’s and begins at 6:30pm on Thursday, May 12th, the eve of the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima. Following the May Crowning in church we will process to the Atrium Gardens and the statue will be dedicated, please mark your calendars and plan to join us!
This weekend we are also celebrating First Communion for our parish second graders, please be sure to keep them in prayer! This is also the final month of school for our 8th Graders, please pray for them as they complete their time in grade school and prepare for graduation and high school. Finally, as I mentioned last weekend, please keep the priests of the Archdiocese in prayer over the next few days as we head out for our annual Spring Assembly of Priests.
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