The Statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
Statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
Statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been on campus since 1887. The five foot, ten inch tall statue arrived from Italy on August 6, 1887. It was unveiled and blessed during the feast of The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Originally the statue resided in a niche which was located above the entrance of the former Chapel/Monastery which was the original building complex on campus. While most of the building was destroyed by fire in 1930, the statue miraculously survived and was taken down from its niche. When construction begun on new campus buildings the statue was moved to its current location and a pedestal was constructed for it using stones from its former home. On the pedestal are two quotations from the old testament surrounding a picture of the burned building. They read "The ground on which you stand is hallowed land."
Sources
Statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Accessed May 6th 2020. http://archives.sbu.edu/buildings/shrines/mothermary.htm.
archives.sbu.edu