A Blessed Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel to all from SusanMaria.com. The locations highlighted in this short video were taken in Hungary in June of 2008. I have recently come across numerous, incredible Folk Hymns from the Hungarian ethnic collections, and have recorded some of them using Accoustica Mixcraft and a cheap headset microphne. My voice is aging with me it appears, but I hope you enjoy these. I'm sorry about the slight distortion on the reverb too. The ancient melodic structure of the old Magyar Hymns, along with this unique language show the intense love of the Faith and especially of the Blessed Virgin Mary that the Hungarian peoples have. There is a mistake on one of the slides: my great-grandfather was Gabor Szabo, not Gabor Kiss.
Anyway, this is a short video presentation for this great Marian Feast. Before I forget, the tiny, 11cm high statuette held in the crystal encasement by the two angels is Our Lady of Beshnyo, Hungary. The Szabo and Kiss side of our family came from this region. The ancient medieval church of Beshnyo was razed by the Turks when they occuppied Hungary for a period of 150 years, along with the town. Around the 1750's, the Baron who owned vast landholdings in that area, Baron Grassalovics made a promise to Our Lady that if his third wife of seven years would not die from her serious illness, he would build a church in her honour. His wife was cured (his two former wives had also died each after seven years of marriage!), but the immensely wealthy Baron procrastinated about fulfilling his promise. The people asked him why he was not building the church as he promised. He said he "didn't know where to build it". One day, as he and his wife were returning by horse and carriage from their landholdings in Hatvan, the horses bolted and their lives were in complete jeopardy. The ancient road from Hatvan through Beshnyo is the same as today's M3 highway, and has some sharp turns. The Baron suddenly remembered his failed promise, and with earnest the pair of them started to pray. Suddenly, without warning, the horses came to a standstill. The relieved pair alighted from the carriage and immediately spied in the dense bushes and trees, the ruins of an old medieval Church. The Baron took this as a sign from God and immediately set about organising a builder and workers. It was decided to clear the old building stones and start anew, and the new Church to be built as a replica of the Loretto chapel. One night the builder had a dream: Our Lady appeared to him and said 'Dig in such and such a location and you will find something beautiful'. The next day, during the lunch break, he and a simple day labourer went to investigate. They dug in the spot indicated in the dream, and after only two shovel lengths down, the day labourer unearthed 'something'. He didn't know what it was, as it all covered in dirt. After cleaning their find, to their amazement they found a beautiful silver statuette of the Blessed Virgin. The Baron was beside himself with joy and encased the statuette in the crystal casing you see in the photo. The statue is most likely of French origin. Meanwhile the Franciscans were asked to come and take charge of the new Marian Church and Shrine. The Franciscans arrived ** on foot ** bringing with them their own Marian statue, one of Our Lady of Loretto. So in this way, Beshnyo has two statue of Our Lady.
You can stay right next to the shrine at the Mater Salvatoris Retreat House. Prices are around EURO34 for a single room. Beshnyo is only about 45 minutes from the Budapest Eastern (Keleti) Railway station, and trains go regularly. It is a scenic train trip - but watch out for GODOLLO station. Beshnyo is the NEXT station stop, but there are no signs on the platform, only at the very front of the platform, suspended from the air is a large sign saying 'Maria Besnyo'. You can see the Church from the station, it's about a 30 minute easy walk.
My grandmother came to this blessed place of pilgrimage at the age of five, brought by her own grandmother. It was very special to be able to make this pilgrimage in their footsteps so many years later, on behalf of all our family.
May Our Lady under all Her Great Titles bless you!
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Glory to God in the highest through His Divine Mercy and through Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Our Blessed Mother, the Immaculate Concepcion, "Full of Grace"!
oscardevera 1 year ago
Thanks for this
CredoCatholicJournal 3 years ago
thank you so much for sharing!
very beautiful and heartfelt
thank you for sharing the story of the baron and his promiseto Our Lady.
Go bless you
sacredfemme9 3 years ago