Pope celebrated Mary’s birthday with “Good Counsel” devotion

Pope Leo XIV pulled up by car to the small town of Genazzano just after five in the evening. The place sits about twenty miles southeast of Rome and holds just over five thousand residents. He had come for the evening Mass on September 7 2026 at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel. The shrine belongs to the Augustinian order that formed his own religious family. An Augustinian nun named Blessed Petruccia started the site in the fifteenth century. Augustinian friars still care for it today. Leo XIII had raised the shrine to the rank of a minor basilica, and Leo XIV chose the same name in part because of that link. This was the pope's second trip to the shrine since his election. His first visit outside Rome had taken place on May 10 2025. During the homily he remembered how the Virgin had walked with him through his life with a mother's presence and wisdom. In that homily Leo XIV turned to the words of the Augustinian saint Thomas of Villanueva. The Gospels say little about Mary's own life and speech. Yet her presence set history in motion through the child she carried. The pope spoke of the mystery that leaves people almost dizzy, the fact that a girl like any daughter or granddaughter becomes the Mother of God. He gave the image of Our Lady a golden rose. The base of the three-branched rose carries the coats of arms of the shrine itself, of Martin V who first offered such a rose in 1431, of Leo XIII, and of Leo XIV. Leo XIV asked the faithful to picture peace inside their own souls. In days marked by loss and doubt, he said, people can still see what is not yet visible and welcome the strength it carries. The evening closed with that simple call to hold peace as already present and to serve it. The visit kept alive a long pattern of popes honoring the shrine on the eve of Mary's birth. Leo XIV's choice to return showed the personal tie that still draws him there.