By Thom Nickels
Shrines are wonderful places. In a world of increasing secularity they remind us of what is important and what is eternal.
Mary Jo Timlin-Hoag, first woman to serve in that capacity in the organization’s 103-year history.
One such shrine is Germantown’s Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. Founded by Fr. Joseph Skelly, CM in 1915 in honor of Saint Catherine Laboure’s dutiful execution of a request by the Virgin Mary to strike a medal in her honor. The shrine has continued to attract faithful Catholics from all over the world for over a century.
Parishes may close in Northeast Philadelphia and the names of Archdiocesan bishops may change with the passing decades, but this solid monument to the Virgin Mary will stand another 103 years if the shrine’s new senior executive director, Mary Jo Timlin-Hoag, has anything to do with it.
Mary Jo is passionate about the Virgin Mary, although she likes to address the Mother of God as The Blessed Mother.
“I want to see the shrine go on for another 103 or plus years, and I want to see an even bigger increase in devotion to Mary either through the Shrine or other ministry works that we do up and down the East Coast,” Mary Jo told me by phone. “I also want youth and young adults to know who Mary is.”
But the growth of a Shrine of this magnitude doesn’t happen by itself. Mary Jo credits the good works of the Vincentian fathers and brothers around the world as the reason why the Shrine still retains its relevance and vitality.
When the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Catherine Laboure in 1830 she warned of coming troubles in the world but she also urged St. Catherine and all believers to have confidence in her.
Photo | Anne Pryce
“The times are evil,” the Virgin said. “Sorrows will come upon France; the throne will be overthrown. The Cross will be thrown down and trampled. The Archbishop will be stripped of his clothes. Blood will flow in the streets. The side of Our Lord will be pierced anew. The whole world will be afflicted with tribulations.”
“Confident” prayer, after all, can change people and alter world events, and the many different kinds of people who flock to the Shrine seem to know this and that’s why they continue to come.
Mary Jo spends five days a week at the shrine although her role often extends to seven days a week. “I get out to parish events that are going on within the Vincentian family. There’s the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Daughters of Charity, the Vincentian youth ministry. I try to participate in these events when I can. I really want to be out and about promoting the Shrine, promoting the Vincentians, so people don’t forget us.”
Visit the Shrine on a Monday and you will see that Monday’s are when Novenas are offered all day. “We have a constant influx of people that are coming to the Shrine where there are a variety of culturally devotional Mary’s. Mary’s arms are open for everyone,” Mary Jo said. “We have Philipino, Vietnamese, Indian, Latino and Irish communities who come here.”
The Shrine is a signature destination place in Germantown. Older residents of the area may remember the days when the shrine used to manufacture Miraculous Medals. For many it was known as the ‘Medal Factory.’ Kids referred to it as such, “the place where they make medals,” and they remember those days with fondness.
“We used to do a lot of our own material as well as make new medals,” Mary Jo said. “Now all that is outsourced. That being said, we still have a couple of million Miraculous Medals in the building. Our goal is to spread the story and the mission all over the world.”
A couple of million Miraculous Medals is an extraordinary thing. Hopefully they will find their way into the highways and byways of the nation. The Shrine still sends out a simple Miraculous Medal on request.
Although some Church devotions and practices have gone by the wayside since the 1960s, the Shrine of the Miraculous Medal is stronger than ever. It has never once fallen off the radar screen. “I attribute this to the power of the Blessed Mother,” Mary Jo says.
Mary Jo’s special devotion to the Virgin is life-long. As she told CatholicPhilly.com: “She is someone I talk to all day long. She is something of a confidant. She is someone I can take my worries to and have a conversation with. At the end of the conversation everything is fine.”
Mary Jo cannot state enough that the vitality of the Shrine cannot be understood apart from the history of the Vincentians.
Photo | Fr. Frank Sacks, CM
“When the Vincentians came to the United States 200 years ago they first came to St. Louis where they set up their first Province. They then identified Philadelphia as an area to settle next, so they built a seminary and the Shrine. So many men were in formation in the 1930s and 40s that they had to go into Princeton, and from there they went out into all areas of the country and into the world.”
The Mount Saint Joseph and Penn State graduate worked in the health field as a nurse and then moved to the administrative and business side of health care. When her husband fell ill and passed away, Mary Jo says she took a year off to decide what she should do with her life.
“I knew I didn’t want to go back into corporate health care business but join a line of work that truly helps people. I wanted to see the import of that. I prayed hard on this. When the position at the Shrine came up I said I can do this role and I have all the skills to do this role.”
“I think I am going to see great results at the end of the day,” she adds.