The history of each Vatican Angelus’ Immaculate Conception banner

The history of each Vatican Angelus' Immaculate Conception banner
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During the Angelus, a prayer honoring Mary, every week in St. Peter‘s Square for 29 years, a blue banner with the words “The Immaculate Conception will triumph” was flown.

The statement on the banner is reminiscent of St. Maximilian Kolbe’s Marian spirituality, in which he had a particular devotion to the Immaculate Conception.

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Members of the Casa di Maria (“House of Mary”) community have held the sign “L’Immacolata Vincerà” at the Pope’s Angelus on Sundays and Marian feast days since the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, 1994.

“We declare that life is a battle and that a Christian’s joy is a victory every time we raise the banner in the square. the celebration of those who think that good triumphs over evil because God is greater, rather than the delight of those who act as though everything is fine,” Father Michele Reschini emailed CNA.

The priest in charge of the community’s youth program stated that the House of Mary is motivated to attend the Angelus on Sundays to support the pope’s apostolate and magisterium and to show its filial affection for him.

He clarified, “In addition, this banner is intended to be a little symbol of great hope.” We wish to convey that Our Lady appears in the heart of the Church at such a sacred location and time as the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square.

At the Sunday Angelus with Pope Francis, tens of thousands of people are usually present.

Pope Pius XII was persuaded to publicly pray the Angelus at noon on Sundays in 1954 by his friend, an Italian Catholic doctor as well as lay leader Luigi Gedda. This is when the custom of popes praying the Angelus in public first emerged.

When the House of Mary community was first established in 1990, Cardinal Andrzej Maria Deskur—a Polish cardinal employed by the Vatican and a close friend of St. John Paul II during his seminary years—provided early support.

The community, which was founded as a Marian prayer group, consists of young adults, families, consecrated women, and priests.

Deskur had written in 1987 in meditation for an Immaculate Conception novena about St. Maximilian Kolbe and his Marian spirituality.

The cardinal stated, “The Immaculate Conception will triumph,” which is a phrase the saint often repeated in the face of adversity. This sums up St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe’s Mariology.”

When Deskur presented Father Giacomo Martinelli and the House of Mary community to Pope John Paul II on March 25, 1994, he repeated the phrase.

The House of Mary adopted “The Immaculate Conception will triumph” as their unofficial motto. On December 8, 1994, nearly nine months later, the group carried their blue banner to the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square for the first time.

The following month at an Angelus, Pope John Paul II said, “I, too, do not doubt that the Immaculate Conception will triumph!” pointing to the sign.

It is estimated that the group has traveled more than 96,000 miles to over 38 cities, including some of the pope’s apostolic trips within Italy, where it has carried its banner.

The organization and its attendance at his Sunday Angelus have received support from Pope Francis as well.

“In a world where the gifts of belief and fraternity are becoming increasingly rare, the House of Mary is a community that seeks to live the Gospel in faith as well as bear witness to the Gospel through fraternal life,” Reschini stated.

From the manger to Calvary, Our Lady was ever-present in the life of Jesus. Thus, she is ever-present in the Church’s life from the start to the finish,” he went on. “Her presence assures us of victory, and her faithfulness gives us hope.” It forces us to think that his faithfulness outweighs our infidelity and that the Church can always find itself trustworthy to Jesus Christ in this faithfulness.

“With Mary by her side, the Church will prevail during the storms of modernity; amid the icy winds of secularism, modernism, and relativism; beneath the threats of apostasy and idolatry, because like Mary, it is faithful to Christ to the end.”

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