Our Lady
Our Lady of Vailankanni (Our Lady of Good Health)
Title of the Blessed Virgin Mary · Feast September 8 · India (Velankanni, Tamil Nadu)
The great Marian shrine of India, on the Coromandel coast of Tamil Nadu, where Mary is invoked as Our Lady of Good Health by Catholics and by pilgrims of other faiths alike.
Origin
Devotion at Velankanni rests on accounts handed down from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — help given to a boy carrying milk, healing given to a lame child, and the rescue of Portuguese sailors from a storm who fulfilled a vow by building a chapel on the shore. The shrine grew from that chapel; Pope St. John XXIII raised its church to the rank of a minor basilica in 1962. The principal feast is the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on 8 September, preceded by a festival of days that draws pilgrims from across India.
Why it matters
Ecclesia in Asia asks that the Gospel be presented in Asia with an Asian face, and Velankanni is one of the places where that has happened without any loss of substance: a sari-clad Madonna, an Indian pilgrimage culture, and unaltered Catholic faith in the Incarnation. The title Good Health also keeps the Church's ancient conviction that the God who saves souls cares about bodies, and that prayer for healing is a proper part of Christian life.
Feast day
September 8
Region
India (Velankanni, Tamil Nadu)
Iconography notes
The Virgin is vested in a sari and holds the Child, who is likewise dressed in Indian fashion; pilgrims traditionally offer saris for the image. The basilica itself is white with a red-tiled roof and rises directly above the shore.
Aliases
- Our Lady of Velankanni
- Our Lady of Good Health
- Vailankanni Matha
Content subtype
devotional_title
Associated prayers
hail-mary
memorare
litany-of-the-blessed-virgin-mary