The Catholic Weekly 16 August 2020

catholicweekly.com.au 13 16, August, 2020 FEATURE A screenshot of some of the options offered by the Masters’ Gallery Rome website. PHOTO: CNS /MASTERSGALLERYROME.TEACHABLE.COM Covid means fewer tourists for Rome’s Vatican Museums, but an alternative is available. PHOTO: CNS, PAUL HARING Shrines and pilgrimages the world over DESPITE ONGOING and un- predictable travel restrictions, there are still a number of important sites, shrines and sanctuaries peple can “visit” online in Europe and the Mid- dle East. In fact, the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France held a worldwide online pil- grimage on 16 July – the anni- versary of the last apparition of the Virgin Mary. The online initiative, was will livestreamed for 15 hours in 10 languages from the Grot- to of Lourdes. For more than 160 years, the sanctuary has been an essential place for millions of people who visit each year, seeking hope, healing, frater- nity and deepened faith. Navigating the top of the homepage at lourdes-france. org , visitors can also find ways to request a Mass, light a can- dle and place a prayer petition in the grotto. Here are several other places important to Catholics that are offering some kind of virtual visit or livestreaming service. Many of these online sites are also appealing for donations since lockdowns and restrictions have serious- ly reduced a major source of income from pilgrimages and tourism. l The Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land oversees 55 sanctuaries in Israel, the Pal- estinian territories and Jordan. Visitors a at custodia.org can get a more in-depth look at these sacred places, especially the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, revered as the site of Jesus’s tomb, in Je- rusalem. l The Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Portugal offers a livestream of the chapel and live daily broadcasts of pray- ing the rosary and Mass at www.fatima.pt/en The same link also provides a gallery of pictures, videos and “sounds,” ¾ ¾ Carol Glatz including an audio library of Marian hymns. l Though only in Italian, the Holy House of Loreto near the Adriatic Sea in Italy posts videos of their daily Masses and the recitation of the rosa- ry on their YouTube channel “Santa Casa Loreto” at www. youtube.com Their main website at san- tuarioloreto.it also only in Italian, has links for sending prayer intentions and for see- ing photos and videos of the sanctuary, which tradition holds is where Mary was born and raised and where the Holy Family was thought to have lived when Jesus was a boy. The one-room Holy House also is held to be the place where Mary received the an- gel’s annunciation and con- ceived the Son of God through the Holy Spirit. l Thewebsite of the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi offers a huge list of online opportu- nities, all in Italian, but still visually enriching, like a lives- treamof the tomb of St Francis with an option of sending a prayer petition at sanfranc- escopatronoditalia.it and a livestream of daily Mass in the basilica at www.sanfranc- escopatronoditalia.it There is a 360-degree virtu- al tour of the basilica at san- francescopatronoditalia.it and of the tomb at sanfranc- escopatronoditalia.it The 13th-century basilica had to be painstakingly restored, in- cluding its frescoes by Giotto, after a devastating earthquake in 1997. l While a special online ex- position of the Shroud of Turin was held April 11 for prayer and contemplation during the coronavirus epidemic, the recorded event, with com- mentary in English, can still be found online at youtube.com ONLINE For quick, precise links to all these sights, go to www. catholicweekly.com.au/pil- grimages Visit virtually: a worshipper wears a a protective mask in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. PHOTO: CNS/DEBBIE HILL