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On a recent pilgrimage to Rome, members of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Patrick took the short trip southwards to Nettuno, the site of the martyrdom and the shrine of St. Maria Goretti, illustrious member and heavenly Patroness of the Sodality of Our Lady. The story of the life and death of the ‘Lily of Corinaldo’ are well known.  In 1902, she died a martyr of the virtue of purity and on her deathbed, the site of which was visited by the Sodalists and reverenced by them, she made two conscious acts, the first was to forgive her murderer, the second was to request that she be received into the Sodality of Our Lady.  Her request was fulfilled and she was presented with the Sodality Medal on the traditional ‘virgin blue’ ribbon.  She kissed the medal, with its representation of Our Lady of Grace, often in her last moments.  When her exceptional holiness came to be more formally recognised and her body was exhumed twenty-seven years later, medal and ribbon were found to be in perfect condition, without the slightest trace of corruption. She was canonized in 1950.  She is among more than 80 Sodalsts who …

Of twenty members of the Sodalities of Our Lady who have ascended the throne of St. Peter, and of the seven Sodalist Popes of the Twentieth Century, Pope Pius XI is one of the most notable. Director of a Sodality in Milan and a noted mountaineer, Pope Pius XI addressed a group of Italian Sodalists thus: “Sodalists should be like those angels who ascent and descend the mystical latter from earth to heaven: they ascent rich in prayer, religious practices and their Eucharistic life; they descend rich in blessings, encouraged to spread their favours over the earth into the minds and hearts of all, cherishing for all a fraternal affection because possessed by the ardent love of the true Children of Mary.  May they continue to ascend and descend that mystical latter at whose summit Jesus and Mary await to thank them for all the great good they have done in the past and will do in the future.”  Pope Pius XI to an Italian Sodality, reported in l’Osservatore Romano, and in Madonna, Official Organ of the Sodalities of Our Lady in Ireland, May, 1935. “On one occasion, Pope Pius XI compared the Sodality of Our lady to the Milky Way, that brilliant …

Saint Alberto Hurtado, S.J. is one of the most recent Sodalists to be Canonized.  Born in Chile in 1901, he studied at the Jesuit College of San Ignacio in Santiago and qualified as a lawyer before entering the Jesuit Noviciate in 1923.  He pursued studies in Spain, Belgium and Ireland and was ordained to the Priesthood in 1933. He returned to Chile in 1936 where he was appointed professor of Religion at the Colegio San Ignacio and professor of pedagogy at the Catholic University of Santiago.  During this time he was appointed Director of the Student Sodality and began a life-long apostolate to the poor. In 1941, he published a notable work entitled Is Chile a Catholic Country? Also during this time he established shelters called Hogar de Cristo (Hearth of Christ), which took in all children in need of food and shelter, assisting an estimated 850,000 between 1945 and 1951.  He died in 1952. He was beatified in 1994 and was canonized in 2005.  His feast day is 18th August.

The Reverend Father Joseph Mary Gill, S.J., was the Director of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Patrick from 1975 until his death in 2006.  Born in County Mayo in 1915, he was a student of the Servant of God Father John Sullivan, S.J., at Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare.   He entered the Society of Jesus in 1934 and was an outstanding Jesuit for the remaining 72 years of his life.  He was ordained a Priest on the Feast of St. Ignatius, 1945. Having taken his final vows in the Society earlier that year, he became one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the Irish Province’s mission to the then Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia.  He was justly proud of his time as Administrator of St. Ignatius’ Church, Lusaka, and Canisius College, Chicuni.  In 1958, Fr. Gill came back to the Church of St. Francis Xavier, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin 1, which was to be the home of his apostolic zeal for almost half a century to come.  Fr. Gill was revered by countless souls not only for his personal holiness, which shone forth in an unassuming and manly way through his devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass …