Our Trip to the National Shrine of St. Gerard

Lately, I have been making some good progress. I started to think about the events that lead me to this point. Last year I was stuck in place with no hope of moving forward, my DH and I went to visit the National Shrine of St. Gerard on his feast day October 16th, 2010. It was 3 months later that I found a reproductive immunologist who found treatment for my LUFS. Then I found out I had immune issues. Then I got more tests done and now it seems that I found some more issues to fix. I went back to look and it seems I never posted information about our trip. So I thought it would be a nice way to thank him.

 

The national shrine to St. Gerard is located in Newark, NJ at St. Lucy's Parish http://www.saintlucy.net/  It is a beautiful church with beautiful grounds. All along the perimeter are statues.

 Inside the church there is a separate chapel for St. Gerard. There is a long line to get in to see him. When you go in you donate money by attaching it to his statue. Some people were asking for help and others were there to thank St. Gerard.
We bought a candle to stay there and then we bought one to take one.

Thank you, St. Gerard for your help!












Then at a special time, they bring the statue outside and put him on a float to take him on the road for a procession around the city.







 
 
The streets were filled with people joining in the procession.
People also came out of their homes to donate money and add it to the statue.


 

While all of this is going on there is also an Italian  festival on the church grounds in his honor. There were vendors, great food and music. It was a great experience. I was amazed at the number of people there.
Here is an article written about the feast day celebration.