Our Lady of Loreto

Our Lady of Loreto honors Mary and the Holy House of Nazareth, which has been venerated since the late 13th century in the hilltop town of Loreto, on Italy's Adriatic coast. Inside the great basilica stands a small stone house that tradition holds to be part of the home where Mary was born, where the angel Gabriel announced that she would be the Mother of God, and where the Holy Family lived.

A popular legend says angels carried the house from Nazareth to Italy. Historians point out that a noble family named Angeli is linked to the house's arrival around 1294, which may explain the story. Either way, Loreto became one of the most beloved pilgrimage places in Christendom. The Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, prayed in parishes worldwide, is known as the Litany of Loreto because of its long use at the shrine.

Because of the story of the flying house, Pope Benedict XV named Our Lady of Loreto the patroness of aviators in 1920. In 2019 Pope Francis added her optional memorial to the calendar of the whole Church on December 10, during Advent, when the Church remembers how God made his home among us.