Feast Day of Our Lady of Loreto
The humble home in which Mary grew upUnlike most other Marian feast days, Our Lady of Loreto doesn’t refer to an apparition or a Marian title. It refers to a building. Specifically, it refers to the humble home in which Mary grew up and the extraordinary measures God took to preserve it.
The Sancta Casa of Loreto is not impressive. It is a stone house with three walls and no foundation, measuring about 31×13 feet. It originally stood in Nazareth.
The events that occurred in and around the house, however, are extraordinary. Tradition tells us that this is where Our Lady was born. It’s also the site of the Annunciation and where the Holy Family lived for many years.
We know that the early Christians revered this house as Mary’s home. St. Epiphanius, St. Willibald, and the Venerable Bede all wrote about it. Later, St. Helena even built a basilica over it. St. Louis IX of France was the last saint to visit the sancta casa in Nazareth in 1251, just before the Fall of Jerusalem. St. Helena’s basilica was destroyed in 1263.
This is where the story gets interesting. The Sancta Casa appeared in Italy as early as 1291. Legend says that angels carried the house from Nazareth to modern-day Croatia, then on to Italy. There’s actually a detailed story about two brothers discovering the Sancta Casa and arguing over how to make the most profit from it. The house then disappeared and reappeared on a road next to a ditch in the town of Loreto, off the Adriatic coast.
Some historians believe that a family called the Ageli was responsible for bringing the house over by ship. That’s fine; Catholics aren’t required to believe that angels affect archeology, and there’s strong evidence supporting that theory. But archeologists in the 1960s actually did find the Sancta Casa’s stone is from Palestine, as are minute bits of pollen found in the stone. There is also graffiti on the stone that matches graffiti in St. Helena’s ruined basilica. Finally, measurements of the remains of the foundation in Nazareth perfectly match the Sancta Casa. It’s the same house.
Our Lady of Loreto, pray for us.