American Tour Group to Join 400th Jubilee to Our Lady of Luxembourg Celebrations

On Sunday 8 December 2024, the statue of and devotion to Our Lady of Luxembourg (Virgin Mary) will celebrate its 400th Jubilee.

In a recent interview with Georges Hellinghausen, Chronicle.lu learned about the celebrations in Luxembourg, which officially begin on Sunday and run until the end of the 2025 Octave pilgrimage in late May.

For this special occasion, a tour group from the United States is set to visit the Grand Duchy as part of Luxembourg Adventures with Kevin Wester. Under the banner "Celebrating & Renewing Luxembourg Ties", Kevin Wester will bring over a group of 70 Luxembourg-Americans in May 2025 "to celebrate and renew the ties between Luxembourg and the USA". Visitors will also take part in the Marian Jubilee celebrations, notably in the Octave closing procession, where they will carry three historic Luxembourg-American banners from 1892, 1966 and the new 2024/25 banner.

Ahead of this tour, Kevin Wester is visiting Luxembourg for the opening celebration this Sunday. He plans to walk in the procession with the 400-year-old statue of Our Lady of Luxembourg to commemorate the anniversary of devotion.

Kevin Wester spoke with Chronicle.lu about the significance of Our Lady of Luxembourg to Americans with Luxembourgish heritage. In the area where he grew up, in Belgium, Wisconsin, Our Lady of Luxembourg is a well-known figure. In the past, she played an important role in the national and spiritual identity of Luxembourgers who had emigrated to the United States (in the 19th century).

Context

On 8 December 1624, the Jesuit priest Father Jacques Brocquart and students at the Jesuit boys' college walked through the streets of Luxembourg City with the statue which became known as our Lady of Luxembourg. Her formal title is "Maria Mater Jesu, Consolatrix Afflictorum" (Mary, Mother of Jesus, Consoler of the Afflicted).

Life for Luxembourgers at this time was full of hardship and suffering. They were in need of consolation. As such, devotion to the Consoler of the Afflicted grew and, in 1666, she was named the patroness of Luxembourg City; in 1678, she was also appointed the patron saint of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. She thus became an important figure both spiritually and for the national identity of Luxembourgers.

The statue was honoured for years in a small pilgrimage chapel outside the fortress wall on the Glacis (Limpertsberg). During the French Revolution, this first chapel was destroyed and the statue was moved to what became today's Notre-Dame Cathedral in Luxembourg-Ville.

Every year, between Easter and Pentecost, this special relationship with Our Lady of Luxembourg is highlighted during the two-week Octave pilgrimage (originally eight days, hence the name).

Devotion in the US

Kevin Wester noted how many of the ancestors of Luxembourg-Americans showed "great devotion" to Our Lady of Luxembourg. "She represented their Luxembourg identity and gave them courage and hope to make the frightening journey from Luxembourg to the unknown in the USA," he said.

Kevin, who is also writing a book about devotion to the Consoler of the Afflicted in Luxembourg and in the US, has identified 40 "public" images of Our Lady of Luxembourg in the United States, namely in states where many Luxembourgers had moved in the 19th century: Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska - plus one in Kentucky, which he described as "unusual".  The oldest one can be found in Dacada, Wisconsin, near the Luxembourg American Cultural Society (LACS). A woman had brought it to the US in her trunk in 1849. The most recent statue dated to 2020, and was donated by the Cardinal and Archdiocese to a Luxembourgish church in Chicago.

Elaborating on the three historic banners to be included in the Octave procession in May, Kevin explained that this pilgrimage was "a huge part" of Luxembourg immigrants' lives. Travelling to Luxembourg City for this occasion was the only "holiday" they ever took. In 1892, Nicholas Gonner, publisher of the Luxemburger Gazette (Dubuque, Iowa), raised funds from the Luxembourgish community in the US to purchase this first banner. The older banner, from 1666, came from the Luxembourg Social Club of Chicago, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Consoler of the Afflicted being named patroness of Luxembourg City. The 2024/25 banner is currently being designed (by Luxembourg artist Jacques Schneider) and produced, on Kevin's initiative; he is also overseeing the fundraising.