In 1926, a Welsh boy was rescued from drowning by a Lady in blue

Catholics in Wales celebrated the restoration of a much-loved shrine that marks the place where, in 1926, a three-year-old boy, Gerald O’Shea, from the former mining village, fell into the coal-blackened confluence of the Rivers Taff and Cynon. When he returned home, he said that he had been rescued from the water by a Lady in blue – the Lady on his religious medallion.

A shrine to mark the miracle was cut into the steep rocky cliffs by miners, many of them migrants from Italy and Ireland, and it became a place of pilgrimage that drew about 10,000 pilgrims a year. But over time it became overgrown, and the path to the shrine crumbled and became unsafe.

It was forgotten until Fr John Phillips took over the church of St Thomas, above the shrine. Along with a group of parishioners, he began the work of clearing the brambles and knotweed from the path and restoring the shrine after a decade of neglect.

The shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes—inaccessible for almost a decade—in Abercynon in the Cynon Valley, Wales, was rededicated on October 20, 2019 by the Archbishop of Cardiff, George Stack. Landscaping work has transformed what was an overgrown wilderness into a peaceful place where people can sit and pray in tranquil surroundings.

Adapted from: The Tablet

October 25, 2019