Consecration of Corsica to Mary with Traditional Mass

Notre Dame de la Serra  Mary Queen of
Corsica

(Ajaccio) Bishop Olivier de Germay Ajaccio celebrated High Mass on Sunday, the 7th September, at the pilgrimage  Notre Dame de la Serra to Upper Calvi. The Marian shrine located high above the city on a cliff with a magnificent view. There has been a miraculous image of the Blessed Virgin Mary there for more than 500 years, showing her Assumption. This year there is a renewal of a consecration   of the island to the "Queen of Corsica". A Holy Mass was celebrated in the Immemorial Rite.

Every year on the first Sunday in September, a pilgrimage to Notre Dame de la Serra takes place. The walls around the church bear witness to the turbulent events, to which the Mediterranean island was exposed.  Through a donation from the Frankish king Pippin III., the father of Charlemagne, Corsica has belonged since 750 to the Papal States until the island was annexed in 1347 by the Republic of Genoa. The island was often the victims of Muslim pirates from North Africa. In 1553 Corsica  was  even occupied by the unholy Franco-Ottoman alliance. As the Corsicans in the 18th century wanted to shake off the Genoese rule, there were  several uprisings, and Genoa  sold the island to France, which annexed Corsica in 1770.

Mary "Queen of Corsica"

On the hill above Calvi  until the late 18th century there was a hermitage, where the hermit lived intermittently by the miraculous image of grace. In 1735, Corsica still belonged at that time  to Genoa, but aspired to independence, under the protection of Our Lady, when she was made the "Queen of Corsica".  In 1794, during a brief English occupation in the turmoil of the French Revolution, the church was badly damaged, but rebuilt again after the end of the Napoleonic era. On 18 May 1935, the then Bishop of Ajaccio, Rodié undertook the renewal of the consecration to Mary.

Bishop de Germay decided to renew the consecration of Corsica one more time in 2014  to the Virgin Mary in all parishes of the island. The novena began last August 30.   From the 6th-8th September  it took place on the pilgrimage to the Marian mountain of Calvi. 

Fearing a theft, the miraculous image is now in the parish church of Saint Marie Majeure of Calvi. From there, it is annually brought up on the mountain to the traditional pilgrimage.

Traditional Rite in Notre Dame de la Serra

On Saturday, in the church built in 1479,  Notre Dame de la Serra is open all day for the pilgrims. A  procession was lead up the mountain, where Holy Mass was celebrated, which was lit by torchlight.

On Sunday, a Holy Mass was said at 8 o'clock on the mountain  in the traditional Rite, then, a Pontifical Mass was said at 10:30    in the New Rite by Bishop Olivier de Germay. By 4 o'clock there was a Eucharistic blessing with a procession around the sanctuary and the opportunity to gain an indulgence.

On Monday, the Feast of the Nativity of Mary, ,  the consecration renewal of Corsica to the Virgin Mary took place during Holy Mass at 10:30.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image: Riposte Catholique

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG