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The Augustinian Pope Leo XIV, from his first steps as Pontiff, demonstrated his attachment to the Most Holy Mary. From the Loggia of Blessings, on the evening of his election, at dusk on Thursday 8 May, the Solemnity of Our Lady of Pompeii, he entrusted his mandate as successor of Saint Peter, the Church and the world to the Mother of God: ” Today is the day of supplication to Our Lady of Pompeii. Our Mother Mary always wants to walk with us, to be close to us, to help us with her intercession, her love. So I would like to pray with you. Let us pray together for this new mission, for the whole Church, for peace in the world, and let us ask for this special grace of Mary, our Mother ” and he closed his presentation speech to the world with the recitation of the Hail Mary, handing over his mandate to Her.
The number 8 is recurrent on the day of the election of the new Pope: the white smoke arrived at 6:08 p.m. on the 8th of the Marian month. May 8th marks the anniversary of the apparition in 490 of St. Michael the Archangel to St. Lorenzo Maiorano, bishop of Siponto, in the cave on Gargano; from here the devotion to St. Michael spread throughout Europe. The Archangel indicated that cave as a place of worship and thus the sanctuary of St. Michael the Archangel arose, called the Celeste Basilica, which is located in the middle of the town of Monte Sant’Angelo. From the Middle Ages onwards it has become the destination of an uninterrupted flow of pilgrims.
Our Lady of the Holy Rosary (linked to Our Lady of Pompeii and also to Our Lady of Fatima, whose feast day was yesterday, May 13) and the Archangel St. Michael are excellent initiation auspices for the new Pontificate. On October 13, 1884, Pope Leo XIII had a mystical vision, at the end of the celebration of Mass, in which Satan threatened the Church; immediately afterwards, Pope Pecci composed a prayer, recommending that it be recited at the end of every Mass, as well as including it in the collection of exorcisms. In 1886, this prayer, in abbreviated form, was inserted together with the Leonine Prayers , to be recited at the end of non-sung Masses; it continued to be practiced until September 26, 1964, when, with the liturgical reform following the Second Vatican Council, the instruction Inter oecumenici n.48, § j decreed its suppression. However, in the Vetus Ordo the prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel continues to be present.
On Friday 9 May, Leo XIV, at the end of his homily during the first Mass on the throne of Saint Peter, entrusted his Petrine and missionary mandate once again to Our Lady, affirming his desire to disappear so as to leave only Jesus Christ in the foreground: ” according to the famous expression of Saint Ignatius of Antioch (cf. Letter to the Romans, Greeting). He, led in chains towards this city, the place of his imminent sacrifice, wrote to the Christians who were there: “Then I will truly be a disciple of Jesus Christ, when the world no longer sees my body” (Letter to the Romans, IV, 1). He was referring to being devoured by wild beasts in the circus – and so it happened -, but his words recall in a more general sense an indispensable commitment for anyone in the Church who exercises a ministry of authority: to disappear so that Christ remains, to make himself small so that he may be known and glorified (cf. Jn 3:30), to spend himself completely so that no one lacks the opportunity to know and love him. May God give me this grace, today and always, with the help of the most tender intercession of Mary, Mother of the Church .”
As a ” Son of Saint Augustine “, Pope Prevost has a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin, who is the patroness of the Augustinian Order and is traditionally invoked by the monks under the titles of Our Lady of Grace, Consolation, Good Counsel and Perpetual Help. Let us not forget that among the Augustinians there is also a particular devotion for Saint Monica, Saint Ambrose, Saint Possidius, Saint Alipius and Fulgentius of Ruspe; while among the canonized hermits of Saint Augustine are listed Nicholas of Tolentino, John of San Facondo, Thomas of Villanova, Saint Rita of Cascia; also of note are the figures of the blessed Simone Fidati and Mother Teresa Fasce.
By surprise, on Saturday 10 May, Leo XIV visited the sanctuary of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano (called the “Loreto of Lazio”), near Rome, run by the Augustinian Fathers, which the Holy Father had already visited several times in the past. In the 15th century, this sacred Marian site became a destination for pilgrimages because, as tradition has it, an image of the Madonna with Baby Jesus miraculously detached itself from a wall of the Cathedral of St. Stephen in Scutari, an Albanian city, during the siege of the Ottomans, to be placed in the current sanctuary of Genazzano. On 17 March 1903, Pope Leo XIII elevated it to the dignity of a minor basilica and today Leo XIV, a devotee of this effigy, went to pay homage to it and pray to it.
On May 14, 2023, the then Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops celebrated the Sunday Mass for the visit of the Madonna of San Luca to the city of Bologna, inside the Cathedral of San Pietro, an annual event eagerly awaited by the faithful. This is a tradition that sees the icon of the Madonna of San Luca descend from the Sanctuary and cross the city during the week of the Ascension. The Sanctuary of San Luca, which stands on the Colle della Guardia, has been a symbol of Bologna for centuries: it is connected to the city center by a road that, starting from Porta Saragozza, winds for four kilometers through a portico of over 600 arches, the longest in the world.
It was December 9, 2023 when Cardinal Prevost entered the Holy House of Loreto and the historical reenactment of the Translation of the Holy House was held in the Pontifical Basilica with the blessing of the fire in the square in front of the Sanctuary. For the occasion, the faithful were invited to light a candle on their window reciting a Hail Mary or the Litany of Loreto, thus joining the traditional lighting of bonfires in the countryside that since the seventeenth century have commemorated the flight of the House of Mary on the Loreto hill, arriving on the night between December 9 and 10, 1294 from Nazareth. It is emphasized that the sanctuary of Loreto has invited to accompany the College of Cardinals with prayer for the election of the Pope in this Holy Year.
But that is not all. In the novena for the Sacred College of Cardinals gathered for the Conclave to elect the Roman Pontiff, which Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke has invited everyone to recite, Our Lady of Guadalupe is invoked ” for the Church in a time of great trial and danger for her. As you came to the aid of the Church on Tepeyac in 1531, we pray to you, intercede for the Sacred College of Cardinals gathered in Rome to elect the Successor of Saint Peter, Vicar of Christ, Shepherd of the Universal Church. In this tumultuous moment for the Church and for the world, beseech your Divine Son that the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, his Mystical Body, humbly obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Through your intercession, may they choose the man most worthy to be the Vicar of Christ on earth .”
In St. Peter’s Square, during the smoke from the chimney, there were faithful waving the banners of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In northern Peru, where Father Robert Francis Prevost was a missionary bishop, who also traveled the streets on horseback, there is a particular devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Marian effigy different from the Mexican one. Historically, the foundation of the district of Guadalupe (one of the five districts of the province of Pacasmayo, with Guadalupe as its capital) was the work, in 1550, of the Spanish captain Francisco Pérez de Lezcano, who, during a trip to Spain, asked for the possibility of obtaining a reiteration of the cult, following his pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, on the hill of Tepeyac, north of Mexico City (La Villa de Guadalupe). In 1560 the first celebrations and pilgrimages took place. A few years later, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe brought from Spain was donated to the Augustinian Fathers, who worked hard to build a sanctuary in her honor. In 1954, this image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was crowned by Pius XII and the title granted to her was that of patroness of the peoples of the North and queen of Peru.
Also on Sunday 11th, at the Regina Coeli , the Pope, in front of 150 thousand people, addressed the Madonna, first for vocations, inviting young people not to be afraid to listen to the invitation of the Church and of Christ the Lord and to pray to her, who « was entirely a response to the call of the Lord », so that « she may always accompany us in following Jesus » and then to entrust to the Queen of Peace her masterful role of intercession « to obtain for us the miracle of peace ».
One thing is already certain: in the vocabulary of Leo XIV, with his evangelizing spirit, a place of honor is given to Jesus Christ and the Mother of God, as is demonstrated by his papal coat of arms, which recalls the episcopal one, that is, a shield divided diagonally into two sectors: at the top left, on a blue background, a white lily is depicted, which symbolizes purity and virginity, with immediate reference to the Madonna. At the bottom right, on a light background, the logo of the Augustinians is depicted: a heart pierced by an arrow, placed above a book, which recalls the conversion of the Father and Doctor of the Church, « Vulnerasti cor meum verbo tuo » (« You have pierced my heart with your word »). Below the symbols is the motto, taken from the Exposition on Psalm 127 by Saint Augustine himself, « In Illo Uno unum » (« In Him who is One, we are one »).
