In 2022 I finally learned about the small statue. The story of how that happened starts in 2012. My aunt, Linda, had started making rosaries. My wife asked Linda if she would make me a rosary for a gift for our 30th anniversary. Linda made a beautiful rosary. I did not recognize the center piece. A Catholic friend told me it was a St. Benedict Medal. I soon learned all about the medal. I had been looking for a place to take a retreat. I took this as a sign and signed up for a retreat at the Benedictine monastery in St. Meinrad, Indiana, about 200 miles away. There I met a Benedictine monk named Father Sean Hoppe. He was kind enough to bless my new rosary. Five years later, in 2017, I made my second retreat. I saw Fr. Sean again and an idea occurred to me: I would start a tradition of asking him to bless a rosary every five years when I visited. I bought a rosary at their gift shop and Fr. Sean blessed it. The center piece was Our Lady of Einsiedeln (a monastery in Switzerland where this group of Benedictines came from). After I got home, I realized that Our Lady of Einsiedeln looked a lot like my tiny statue.
Five years later, in 2022, I was at the monastery again. I showed Fr. Sean my little statue and the rosary he had blessed. I told him the story of the statue and asked him if he thought my statue was Our Lady of Einsiedeln. He said no, it wasn't. He told me he had spent a few years in Belgium, and that my statue was Our Lady of Consolation. He told me that Our Lady of Consolation was very popular in Belgium. He also told me there was a shrine for Our Lady of Consolation just 15 miles from where we were! I asked the monk who was leading our retreat if I could skip out that afternoon to go visit the shrine. He said yes. He also said he had never heard of Our Lady of Consolation or of the nearby shrine. The Holy Spirit had led me to the right person. Fr. Sean. After 53 years of mystery, I now knew the title of the statue. And I was only 15 miles from a shrine with a full-size statue!
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