Our Lady of Loreto

Feast Day: December 10

The feast of Our Lady of Loreto, celebrated on December 10th, honours the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title associated with the Holy House of Loreto, the most visited Marian shrine in Italy and one of the great pilgrimage destinations of the Catholic world. The Holy House is a small stone building preserved within the great basilica of Loreto in the Marches of central Italy, venerated by tradition as the house in Nazareth where the Blessed Virgin Mary was born, was raised, received the Annunciation from the Angel Gabriel, and where the Holy Family lived until the beginning of Jesus's public ministry.

According to the tradition associated with the shrine, the house was miraculously transported by angels from Nazareth to Dalmatia in 1291, when the Crusader presence in the Holy Land was coming to an end and the sacred places were in danger of desecration. It was transported again to the Loretan hillside in 1294, where it has remained ever since. This tradition of angelic translation, which was widely believed throughout the Catholic world from the medieval period, gave Loreto its character as a place of direct connection with the Holy Land and with the life of the Holy Family.

The historical and archaeological questions surrounding the Holy House have been extensively studied. Excavations have confirmed that the building is composed of stone from the Holy Land and not from Italian quarries, and the dimensions of the house correspond to the dimensions of a space identifiable in the foundations of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth. Whatever the precise history of its translation, the building is genuinely connected to the Holy Land and the house has been venerated continuously since the late thirteenth century.

Our Lady of Loreto is the patron of aviators and air travellers, a title given because of the tradition of flight associated with the house's miraculous transportation. The feast is celebrated on December 10th.