Published: August 16, 2011
“Renewing the ancient call”
Marian procession scheduled next month in LA
A major Marian procession through the streets of downtown Los Angeles is planned for Saturday, Sept. 3, to commemorate the city’s founding and to call on Our Lady of the Angels to watch over the troubled metropolis.
“El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles – the City of Los Angeles – was founded on September 4, 1781 in the name of Our Lady of the Angels, the Blessed Virgin, who had appeared to St. Francis of Assisi over 500 years earlier,” explains the website of the Queen of Angels Foundation, the non-profit organization sponsoring the procession. “On the first birthday of Los Angeles, after the central plaza was dedicated with solemn ceremonies, a mass was said in honor of Our Lady of the Angels, and a grand procession took place invoking Our Lady’s protection, with salvos of musketry, a processional cross, banners, and candlesticks. In this way, the founders of the City and their descendents faced the dangers of the unknown by seeking the aid and protection of Our Lady of the Angels, as the Patroness and Protectress of the infant Pueblo. This carried on for over a century.”
“In recent times,” says the foundation’s website, “Los Angeles has faced perhaps even greater challenges than did our forebears – economic, social, cultural, and spiritual. Today, the Queen of Angels Foundation is renewing the ancient call to Our Lady of the Angels, and the Angelic Host for whom she is Queen, for their aid and protection by a) educating and informing the public through this website and other media; b) the personal prayer and devotion of its members; and c) sponsoring an annual Mass, Procession and Feast in honor of Our Lady of the Angels, inspired by those of the past, to celebrate our Pueblo’s birthday, to rally the Family of God around the feet of Our Lady, bringing them home to Mother Church, and to unite Our Lady’s friends of whatever religious background to call for her blessings upon Los Angeles and all the children of Eve everywhere.”
The event, described in promotional literature as “a grand European-style procession,” will include "a processional crucifix, a statue of Our Lady in a processional carriage, with flowers, banners, flags, color guards, singers, bagpipers, and more...”
The procession will begin at 3 p.m. sharp on Sept. 3 at La Placita Plaza (Queen of Angeles Church) at 535 North Main St. and pass through the streets of downtown Los Angeles to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, 555 West Temple St.
The procession is scheduled to arrive at the cathedral at 4 p.m., followed by a Rosary at the Cathedral Plaza at 4:30 p.m. After the Rosary, the procession will continue into the cathedral sanctuary for a 5:30 p.m. votive Mass “entreating Christ the King, Mary the Queen, and the Archangels and Guardian Angels whom they command, to aid and protect our Archdiocese, our City, and our County, which all bear Our Lady's name.”
A reception will follow in the Cathedral Plaza at 6:45 p.m.
“Be there for this historic event as we renew our forebears’ ancient call to Our Lady in celebration of the City of Angels' birthday on September 4, 1781 and Our Lady's Feast Day,” says a promotional flyer for the procession. “All of Mary’s friends are invited to participate in this joyful observance!”
“Processions have been events in public life -- religious or secular -- for as far back as there are written records,” notes the Queen of Angels Foundation. “In every culture, public anniversaries, triumphant heroes, religious festivals, and innumerable other events have been marked by parades of local leadership and activists -- and participated in by the viewers. In this way, the entire community is able to reaffirm its values and traditions, while inspiring onlookers with a sense of purpose.”
For more information, call (213) 687-2645. To visit the Queen of Angels Foundation website, Click Here.
http://www.thequeenofangels.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/NEW-REVISED-SAVE-T...
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