April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
BLESSED MOTHER
For Mary's month, a list of 'Our Lady of...' sites
PARISHES
• Our Lady of the Americas Shrine Church in Albany, a mission of Blessed Sacrament parish, has a name recognizing the Hispanic heritage of many of its parishioners, who are originally from South America. Also, the worship site is the former Holy Family parish, a merger of Our Lady of the Angels, St. Patrick's and St. Casimir's parishes. "Our Lady of..." has often been used in parish mergers to encompass the names and histories of former, separate parishes.
• Our Lady of the Annunciation parish in Queensbury was founded in 1970. The Annunciation was when the archangel Gabriel told Mary she was to be the Mother of God. There is also an Annunciation parish in Ilion.
• Our Lady of the Assumption parish in Latham, formed in 1963, refers to the Assumption. That's when Mary was "assumed" or taken into heaven, body and soul, at the end of her life.
• Our Lady of Grace parish in Ballston Lake was founded in 1922. The "Hail Mary" prayer, of course, begins with "full of grace."
• Our Lady of Fatima parish in Delanson has been around since 1952; Fatima, Portugal, was a site where apparitions of Mary appeared to three shepherd children in 1917.
• There are three Our Lady of Hope parishes in the Diocese. In Copake Falls, the name recalls the merger of St. Bridget's in Copake Falls and St. John Vianney, which was a merger of Sacred Heart in Philmont and Holy Cross in West Taghkanic. Fort Plain's Our Lady of Hope encompasses the former Ss. Peter and Paul in Canajoharie, St. James in Fort Plain and St. Patrick's in St. Johnsville. In Whitehall, the name "Our Lady of Hope" came from a merger of Notre Dame des Victoires and Our Lady of Angels parishes.
• Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish in Schenectady refers to the title given to Mary as patroness of the Carmelite order. There's also St. Joseph's/St. Michael's/Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish in Amsterdam.
• Our Lady Queen of Apostles parish in Frankfort was a merger of St. Mary's and Ss. Peter and Paul parishes there, so the name honors both the Blessed Mother and two of the most prominent Apostles.
• Our Lady Queen of Peace parish in Schenectady was formed by the merger of Our Lady of the Assumption and Immaculate Conception parishes, both of which had Marian names.
• Our Lady of the Snow parish in Grafton/Berlin gives a nod to the area's winter weather; the parish is a merger of St. John Francis Regis in Grafton and Sacred Heart in Berlin.
• Our Lady of the Valley in Middleburgh, a merger of St. Catherine's in Middleburgh and St. Joseph's in Schoharie, lies in Schoharie County, which has many hills and valleys and is within the boundaries of the Catskill Mountains.
SHRINES
Also in the Diocese are five shrines related to Mary:
• Our Lady of LaSalette Shrine in Altamont pays homage to an apparition of Mary in France in 1846, when she appeared to two children, lamenting the sinfulness of people and advising they return to the faith. The Missionaries of LaSalette say they "take seriously Mary's mandate: 'You will make [Mary's] message known to all [her] people.'"
• The Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville is also known as the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs (St. Isaac Jogues and his companions, and St. Kateri Tekakwitha).
• Our Lady of Knock Shrine in East Durham honors an 1877 apparition of Mary in Knock, located in Ireland's County Mayo. The shrine's stained glass windows and monuments come from Donegal, Ireland.
• The Wayside Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Haines Falls is an outdoor shrine near Sacred Heart/Immaculate Conception parish.
• The Wayside Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in New Lebanon is also outdoors: Built to resemble the grotto where Mary appeared in Lourdes, France, the local shrine is next to Immaculate Conception parish, which oversees it.
FUN FACTS
When you add in all the diocesan parishes named St. Mary's, Immaculate Conception (which refers to Mary's conception without sin), Mater Christi, Holy Mother and Child, Immaculate Heart of Mary, Holy Family and Visitation - plus the Eastern-rite Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Church in Troy - 38 Catholic churches in the Albany Diocese are at least partly named for the Blessed Mother. That's at least 29 percent of all the parishes.
Historically, there were even more area parishes named for Mary that have closed or merged over the years: among them, Our Lady Help of Christians in Albany, a German parish that was known to parishioners as "Maria Hilf;" Our Lady of Mercy in Colonie; Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Granville and in Hudson; Our Lady of the Assumption in Rotterdam; and St. Mary's in Troy, to name a few.
According to Elizabeth Simcoe, diocesan chancellor for pastoral services, "When we were doing [the diocesan pastoral planning process] 'Called to be Church,' communities were discouraged from using Holy Trinity, Holy Family or similar collective names [for new parishes formed by mergers], since we already had a few of those - and also from using hyphenated names, since that gets to be a mouthful. No one was discouraged from dedicating their new parish to Mary.
"I think Marian names are popular because of the affection people have for Mary," she added, citing the Blessed Mother's "care of the child Jesus, her simplicity, her great faith and [her] commitment to do the will of God, as expressed in the Magnificat. As a person she dealt with many issues that everyone else deals with: family struggles (Jesus in the temple), the death of a spouse, facing her child's suffering - the list goes on and on."
The Albany Diocese itself is dedicated to Mary under her title of the Immaculate Conception - a fact made note of by new Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger in his coat of arms, which includes both a crescent moon that signifies the Blessed Mother and a symbol that can either be interpreted as a Star of David (to note his Jewish roots on his maternal side) or a Marian symbol of two interlocking triangles.
To learn more about the parishes of the Diocese named for Mary, go to www.rcda.org and click on "parishes and apostolates."[[In-content Ad]]
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