Word: shrine
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...pilgrimage and personal example, Pope John Paul II has tried to encourage greater devotion among Roman Catholics to the Mother of God. His travels have included stops for prayer at such famous Marian shrines as Fatima in Portugal, Guadalupe in Mexico and Czestochowa in his native Poland. But a prospective 1981 visit to the most famous shrine of all, at Lourdes in southwestern France, had to be postponed when the Pope was shot in St. Peter's Square by Turkish Gunman Mehmet Ali Agca. John Paul believes that he owes his recovery from that attack to the Virgin Mary...
...visions of the Blessed Mother on 18 different occasions. In one of those apparitions, Bernadette was told to dig in the grotto soil and "drink the water." The underground spring she uncovered is believed to have remarkable curative powers. After bathing in the waters or simply praying at the shrine, thousands of sick and handicapped people, an average of two every week, have claimed instant cures for conditions ranging from blindness to cancer. Church authorities have recognized only 64 of these incidents as miracles "not explainable by scientific means," after rigorous investigations by panels of medical specialists...
...since 1966, has transformed Lourdes (pop. 18,096) into one of the busiest tourist spots in France. Only Paris and Nice have more hotel rooms. As the first reigning Pontiff to visit Lourdes, John Paul was also affixing a sort of Vatican seal of approval to a Catholic shrine that is controversial as well as popular...
Bundled in colorful silks, the newborn Keiko Shirato was taken by her parents to a neighborhood Shinto shrine, where a white-gowned priest pronounced blessings for a long and healthy life. On three childhood birthdays she also visited Shinto shrines, clapping her hands and clanging bells to awaken the gods so she could pray to them. In 1980 Keiko used Buddhist omens to select a propitious wedding day. But she exchanged Christian vows with her fiancé in a small chapel at one of Tokyo's elegant hotels. Keiko, now 26 and a mother, expects that some...
...rites of passage (births, marriages, funerals and death anniversaries) and, for the community, a sequence of colorful, joyful festivals. So popular is Hatsumode, the New Year's visit to local sacred places, that specially installed traffic lights guide millions of worshipers along the gravel paths of the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo...