“The last thing to be tackled were the altar and communion rail in 1934. I was able to find many benefactors to finance this, so that we didn’t need to use other means.

The only reason why such an altar with its baroque carving was chosen was the ancient communion rail, which is a work of art in itself. So we didn’t want to remove it. However, when it was examined more closely by, Mr Herwegen from Moselweiss, who was to make the altar, it proved to be the central section of an altar that either was here or would have fitted in here exactly. So I asked him to reconstruct the whole altar to correspond with this central section, with the exception that place for a tabernacle would have to be made and the MTA picture would have to fit into it harmoniously.

The result of this commission was the present altar. It was to be blessed on the feast of the Annunciation in 1934, the 9th April that year and the Monday after Low Sunday. I then asked that on this occasion the whole chapel should be solemnly consecrated, something that had not been done until then, and dedicated to the mystery of Mary’s motherhood as the dogmatic basis for the title, Mother Thrice Admirable. In 1931Pius XI had prescribed that this feast should be celebrated by the whole Church on 11th October. Through the solemn dedication of the chapel following the completion of the new altar by the Provincial of that time, Fr Baumann, it became possible to elevate the feast of Mary’s Motherhood to a first class feast with an octave for our shrine, which was celebrated on 11th October. The octave ended on 18th October with the commemoration of the Founding Document. If we had had to discover the feast and its celebration specially for this purpose, it could not have fitted better.

With this act the Blessed Mother not only became the first patron of the shrine, the owner of the chapel until then, her faithful St Michael the Archangel, became the second patron. This should explain and justify this final and decisive change in the shrine, which has been regretted and criticized by many of the “old” members who did not know about these reasons.”