he Shrine of Our Lady of Clemency was dedicated on March 25, 1943, the Feast of the Annunciation. Funds for erection of the Shrine were subscribed by innumerable members and friends of the Parish.

The Shrine was designed by Wilfred Anthony, an eminent New York architect after suggestions by the Rector, Father Joiner. The woodwork was built by the Mastery Wood Craft Co. of New York, with Henry Beretta as the sculptor. Robert Robbins did the gilding and painting.

Our Lady is shown “clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars,” as S. John was privileged to see her in Heaven (Revelation 12.1).

The figure of Our Lady, six feet in height, rests on a polychromed pedestal of octagonal build. Two handwrought candle rings, made by the Ferro Studios of New York surround the base. From behind the figure, highly burnished rays of glory radiate in the shape of a great vesica. Above the statue is a deep valance of delicate wood carving, gilded and painted in mediæval Gothic colours, and surmounted by a tall spire of open woodwork. The overall height of the Shrine is approximately twenty-five feet. During festal seasons, the image is clothed in antique lace and a white damask mantle.

At the side of the Shrine, toward the Lady Chapel, from a restored flowered iron bracket hangs an antique Italian lamp of silver in the form of three cherubs, copied from a lamp in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome.

Daily devotions are conducted at the Shrine immediately after Evensong, taking the form of a Perpetual Novena.

Shrine Prayers and Intercessions

Description of the Shrine from a 1948 issue of Ave, the magazine of the Society of Mary