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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…

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…

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…

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…