(Vienna: Austria) On June 26th, the jubilee year in connection with the 150th anniversary of the icon of “Our Mother of Perpetual Help” was concluded with a celebration in St Mary’s Church in Hernals, Vienna with an attendance of several hundred people.
The new auxiliary bishop of the metropolis of Lemberg (Lviv, Ukraine), the Redemptorist, Volodymyr Hrutsa, celebrated the feast day mass. Also priests from the Ukraine and Denmark had come to Vienna to take part in this celebration. Among the guests we could also welcome many politicians and Sisters.
Bishop Hrutsa appreciated decades long relationship between the Austrian Redemptorists and the Redemptorists in the Ukraine, including the possibility offered to study in Austria, to the mutual visits and to their support of the pastoral and social work in the Ukraine. Bishop-Vicar and Superior in Vienna P. Lorenz Voith stressed the importance of a down-to-earth devotion to the Virgin Mary, which leads to Christ the Redeemer.
As we come to the end of the Jubilee year we will arrange a “town pilgrimage” in the “Marian Cathedral” in Hernals on the 27th of every month. Moreover, a project for the refugees in Hernals will be named after the icon of Mother of Perpetual Help.
After the festive mass for the first time the icon was carried around the Clemens Hofbauer Square and a music band accompanied the procession. These celebrations of the Redemptorists and the St Mary’s Parish were concluded with a party in the garden of the monastery.
Festive celebrations with processions were also organised in other Austrian redemptoristine monasteries, in Puchheim, Eggenburg and Oberpullendorf and also in Cham (Bavaria).
Fr. Lorenz Voith C.Ss.R.
