Marian devotion
En una ladera del centro de Wilkes-Barre, frente al juzgado del condado y a unos metros del King’s College, un grupo de vecinos sostiene desde hace más de sesenta años una gruta dedicada a Nuestra Señora de Fátima. Su historia es pequeña y muy concreta: por eso merece contarse sin adornos.
Documented history
The image that chairs the place came from Italy And it was blessed in November 1960 by Reverend Raymond E. Larkinon a concrete base built by a Hazleton contractor.
About How it all started there are two incompatible versionspublished both by the same local newspaper, and what is honest is to give them both:
- According to one, a the mid-1950s the owner of the land, Cyril Westfield, placed an image of the Virgin in a cliff about nine meters from West North Street and expanded the place with donations. He died in October 1960, when he was seventy.
- According to another, it was en 1960 when a Catholic group of Plymouth called Divine Mercy colocó allí la imagen.
En 1966, impagados los impuestos, las cuatro parcelas salieron a subasta judicial. El King’s College pujó tres mil dólares y se las llevó por cincuenta más un abogado neoyorquino, Martin C. Sloane, which planned to lift a block of apartments on the cliff. Nunca llegó a construirse, and the grotto followed where it was.
En 1983 acquired the property the non-profit entity Lay Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, fundada por Ted Zubawho had been his caregiver since 1969 and remained so for more than forty years, until his death in 2018. Today, about 40 volunteers keep her.
After acts of vandalism in the late 1980s, the neighbors cost the restoration: new sidewalks, containment wall, prayer rostrum and marble statues ordered from Italy. In 1990 a renewal of forty-four thousand dollars and 1998 An image of the Virgin of almost half a ton was placed.
Qué se venera y quaé significa
The devotion is that of Fatima, and here it takes the simplest form it can take: a rosary of fifteen mysteries in the open, every Sunday, which is on the agenda of the diocese of Scranton. There is no apparition linked to this place nor is it attributed to prodigy: it is an urban grotto where a neighborhood prays.
It is asked there, as in all Marian devotion, the intercession of the Virgin; worship corresponds only to God, and the rosary that is reared, as always, in the mysteries of Christ.
Discernment and limits of this sheet
Private devotional grotto without canonical rank, recognized by the diocese as a place where a public prayer is held. This page does not present objects, images or practices as autonomous powers or transform a devotional tradition into historical or scientific certainty. The two versions on the origin of the place have been given as, without choosing between them, because the available sources do not allow to decide.
Location on the map
The marker points 51 W. North Street, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (United States), cuesta arriba desde el juzgado del condado y frente al King’s College. La coordenada se contrastó con cartografía abierta.
Main source
Diocese of Scranton, a description of the place of worship and the agenda of the Sunday rosary; and Times Leader Wilkes- Barre. Editorial consultation: 18 September 2026.
Para meditar y orar
Lady of Fatima, who asked for prayer and conversion, give us your Son a simple and constant heart, to pray also when no one looks. Amen.
Is the advocation of the Virgin Mary of your people missing?
Si no encuentras la advocación mariana de tu ciudad o pueblo, cuéntanosla: la investigaremos para ubicarla y darla a conocer en este mapa del amor de la Madre por el mundo.
Propose an apvocation →