A home for the Blessed Mother

‘Travelling Madonna’ initiative fosters devotion and prayer

For the past few years, the Blessed Virgin Mary has been on a “home tour” in the community of High Level.

Since 2018, Our Lady of Good Counsel parish has continued a “Travelling Madonna” initiative, meant to foster devotion to the Blessed Mother and strengthen prayer in the home. From July to December of each year, an icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is brought to a different parishioner’s house each week. The icon is then kept in a special place in the home, where the family pray the Rosary before it each day.

As she prepared to host the icon for a week this December, parishioner Donna Lynne Pascual says she looks forward to this special time each year, when this sacred image of the Virgin Mary will be displayed on an altar near her living room. Over those seven days, the image serves as a reminder to her family that prayer is not just something reserved for the church, but is a central part of life in the home.

“When we bring the Madonna home, the expectation is that we are to pray the Rosary once a day with all the family,” Donna explained. “So to me, it helps bring the family closer together. As the saying goes, ‘The family that prays together, stays together.’ And I really like that we have this time together for prayer. We try to get our kids to always say one mystery each of the Rosary.”

This Travelling Madonna project was instigated by the former pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Fr. Henry Kiggundo. When it started, the parish used a statue of the Blessed Mother. It would travel to different family homes only during the months of May and October (May being the month the Church devotes to the Virgin Mary and October being the month the Church devotes to the Rosary). The statue would be passed onto a new family every subsequent Sunday.

With the COVID pandemic in 2020, this initiative was briefly put on pause. When it restarted, the sign-up sheets filled up so quickly with families wanting to host the statue that the parish decided to expand the visitations from July to December, and so it would go around to the homes of the parish for half a year.

But with time, this Marian statue began to look worn and rusted. So to avoid risking any damage to it, in 2024 the statue was returned to the parish and an anonymous parishioner donated an icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, one of the most ancient and well-known Marian images. This icon became the new sacred devotional item through which the “Madonna Visitations” would continue. Gilbert and Debbie Kong were the first family to host the icon, and just about every family in the parish has hosted it since.

Parishioner Elizabeth Moore and her husband have housed the statue and icon several times over the years. Elizabeth notes that, when Fr. Henry was still pastor, he would always remind parishioners to make a list of petitions and intercessory prayers for the Virgin Mary, and to place this list before the statue as they pray. She still continues this practice when she houses the icon.

“I think of it as a prayer chain with Mary,” said Elizabeth. “We pray with Mother Mary for a week and then bring her to the church next Sunday so someone else can pray with her.”

This is only an excerpt. Read the full story in the December 2025 edition of Northern Light