Schedule released for 77th annual pilgrimage to Our Lady of Perpetual Help
The 77th annual pilgrimage to Our Lady of Perpetual Help officially opens at 9 a.m. tomorrow at Mount St. Macrina, located along Route 40 just west of Uniontown.
“Throughout this past year, we Sisters have been celebrating the 90th anniversary of our community’s establishment,” Sister Seraphim Olsafsky, provincial of the Sisters of St. Basil, said in a press release. “This year, we also celebrate 77 years of pilgrimage in honor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, honoring Mary as the Mysterious Treasure of God’s Providence. We hope that you will come and bring a friend or relative to experience this spiritual journey at Mount St. Macrina.”
The pilgrimage is now a two-day event, taking place Saturday and Sunday, although events are also scheduled for Friday night and Monday morning.
The schedule for the pilgrimage includes:
Today — pre-pilgrimage: 5:30 p.m., vespers at Trinity Center and 8 p.m., compline at House of Prayer Chapel.
Saturday — 7:30 a.m. to noon, mystery of reconciliation (confession) at the House of Prayer; 9 a.m., matins, official opening at the shrine altar; 10:30 a.m., solemn blessing of water at Lourdes Shrine; noon, Divine Liturgy at shrine altar and welcome by Olsafsky; 1 to 5 p.m., mystery of reconciliation at House of Prayer patio; 2 p.m., moleben at shrine altar; 2 p.m., children’s pilgrimage at children’s tent, orientation for teens at prayer garden and enrichment sessions at Trinity Center; 3 p.m., teen pilgrimage at prayer garden; 4 p.m., vespers with Divine Liturgy at shrine altar; 6 p.m., enrichment session at Trinity Center; 7 p.m., procession from House of Prayer to Mount Macrina Cemetery; 7:30 p.m., parastas at cemetery with candlelight procession from cemetery to shrine altar and akathist to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Teen social in prayer garden and young adult social in Trinity Center will follow.
Sunday — 9 a.m., Divine Liturgy (Slavonic) at shrine altar; 10:30 a.m., Divine Liturgy at shrine altar; 11 a.m., mystery of anointing at Lourdes shrine; 12:30 to 5 p.m., mystery of reconciliation at House of Prayer patio; 1 p.m., children’s procession and special blessing for youths and young adults from House of Prayer to Mother of God Shrine; 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., mystery of reconciliation for the infirm, sick and physically challenged at Manor Gazebo; 2 p.m., children’s pilgrimage at children’s tent, enrichment session at Trinity Center, teen pilgrimage at prayer garden and mystery of anointing at shrine altar; 3:45 p.m., procession from House of Prayer to Mother of God Shrine; 4 p.m., Divine Liturgy at Mother of God Shrine; 8 p.m., candlelight procession beginning and ending at Mother of God Shrine. Teen social in prayer garden and young adult social at Trinity Center will follow.
Monday — post-pilgrimage schedule: 9:30 a.m., Divine Liturgy.
The Sisters of St. Basil also released highlights of their history that explained Mother Macrina Melnychuk arrived at Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Parish in Cleveland on Jan. 19, 1921, to establish their first foundation. With the collaboration of the Greek Catholic Union, the sisters began caring for children at St. Nicholas Orphanage in Elmhurst, Pa., in 1923. Two years later, they began a teaching ministry that would include work at schools in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
The sisters acquired the former Oak Hill estate of coal baron J.V. Thompson in Uniontown and transformed it into Mount St. Macrina in 1933. The next year, Pope Pius XI presented a gift of the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and asked the sisters to spread devotion to her under that title. In response, the sisters started the pilgrimage to her shrine, which has become the oldest and largest of its kind in North America.
Through the years, the sisters have expanded their ministry at Mount St. Macrina to include the establishment of a cemetery for religious and laity, operation of St. Basil’s Home for Aged Women for 50 years that became a facility for recovery of women suffering from addictions in 2000, and the establishment of a nursing home called Mount Macrina Manor in 1971.
The sisters have been involved in positions at all four eparchies of the Byzantine Catholic Church in the United States and served internationally.
The history noted, “There are no words or facts to list the significance of the presence of each sister as she has offered herself in her place in this 90-year history. The account of their lives of loving God and his people, praying always for intentions grand and small, working to heal the many facets of illness and suffering, teaching, reaching out, consoling, caring and consulting, and accepting roles of leadership in the Church can be known only to God.
“And though the countless number of God’s children, whose hearts and lives have been touched, influenced and changed by knowing these sisters can also not be recounted, it is the sisters themselves who acknowledge with the greatest gratitude to God and to these people, that from them they have received much more than they have given.”