OUR LADY’S JOURNEY’S CHURCH

Another nice small red-brick Neo-Romanesque church just one block from the railways and within walking distance from Miserere Station.

Its four-tier layered tower bears a strong resemblance to St Mary’s in Almagro and so does much of the rest, like a darker scale model of Massa’s lovely church for it is located between two two-storey houses and the church is only bathed in the sunlight that comes through the small clerestory windows at daytime. Also distinctive is the fine white and pink marble pulpit on the south-east corner of the nave as opposed to ”pulpitless” St Mary’s. There is a colourful high-relief depicting Our Lady’s Journey below a flat pink and white marble baldachino-matching the pulpit-in the High Altar just above the similarly canopied tabernacle. The relief is flanked by two casts of St John, the Baptist and St Joseph.

In a clockwise direction from the north aisle, these are the images displayed: St Therese of Lisieux; a reproduction of the icon and St Anthony of Padua. Already in north transept is the Lady Chapel with a cast of Our Lady of Luján and a statuette of St Martin of Porres whereas the Chapel of the Sacred Heart is in the south transept. Christ in Agony, St Lucy and St Cajetan stand along the south aisle while in a small Lady Chapel in the south narthex is the Immaculate Conception between the Argentinian and Vatican flags.

The church’s dedication was inspired by the story behind Our Lady of Monte Allegro’s Church in Liguria, northern Italy. Said story-also depicted in the west portico’s tympanum-dates back from July 2nd 1557 when Our Lady herself appeared before Giovanni Chichizola di Canevale, a humble local peasant, to manifest her ”own motherly predilection for the people of Rapallo” thus leaving a precious Byzantine icon depicting the Assumption of the Virgin to make her will evident. The icon, a bright-coloured painting on a tiny wooden table, shows St Mary – with the Greek ”HP OY”on her-lying by the Holy Trinity and a small myriad of saints and angels. The miraculous characteristics of the apparition prompted the building of a new church on the hill to house the thaumaturgic icon which would soon become a pilgrimage centre .