Walk with Mary throughout the Year

Day 335: April 12 Our Lady of the Revelation, Tre Fontane, Rome, Italy Bruno Cornacchiola was born in Rome on May 9, 1913. His family, poor materially, was even more squalid in spiritual values. His mother, harassed by work outside home, could not even dedicate herself to their education. His father, almost always drunk, often beat him, so much so that at a certain moment he decided not to go home in the evening and spent the night in some cave on the outskirts of Rome or in the premises near the Scala Santa (Holy Steps). As Bruno himself recounts:  “I was traveling by train and I don’t usually pay for the train ticket, I hid under the coach seats when the conductor passed by and if the opportunity arose, I would steal also, I only worried about being taken by the police …” At 23 he married with Iolanda Lo Gatto. However, he did not want to receive the Sacrament of Matrimony and only to satisfy his future wife complied to celebrate it in the sacristy (of a church). During the civil...

Day 334: April 11 Our Lady of Grace of Mellea di Farigliano, Cuneo, Italy A century after the first Apparition, on April 10, 1637, Our Lady appeared a second time to a young man, shortly thereafter the construction of the Sanctuary and Don Bosco was invited to found a school there. The event that brought significance to the small village of Mellea, located on the state road that connects Carrù to Farigliano, in the province of Cuneo, took place on May 20, 1537. Mellea is a common name that can be found in other nearby places and that instinctively recalls honey; perhaps it means a place rich in plants with an intense scent and rich in nectar for bees, such as acacias, limes, cherry trees. Mellea lies right in the middle of the green of these plants, on one of the terraces formed in this place by the Tanaro river. A certain Antonio da Momigliano, in the province of Chambéry, resident in Farigliano, very ill and so crippled that he was forced to walk on all fours, with the help of his ha...

Day 333: April 10 Our Lady of the Virgins, Macerata, Italy Since 1355, there has been a small church in this place with the title of  Our Lady of Virgins (Santa Maria dei Vergini). In 1547, having been abandoned and left to fall into ruin for almost sixty years, its custodians, the Friars of the Fountain, decided to demolish it and rebuild another. On April 3, 1547, they obtained the consent of the Municipality, on the condition that a large chapel for the celebration of Holy Mass was left intact. In this chapel, in 1533, Lorenzo Pittori painted the fresco of the Madonna delle Vergini . On April 10, 1548, Easter Tuesday, in this chapel, Our Lady appeared to a little girl, a certain Bernardina di Bonino, asking that, every Saturday, young girls would carry out processions of penance and fasting in reparation for the sins of the city.  Our Lady asked her to inform the citizens that, on Saturday, a procession of girls was to go here, in reparation for the many scandals that reign...

Day 332: April 09 Our Lady of Sorrows of Chauchina, Chauchina, Granada, Spain Rosaria Granados Martin was a simple woman born in Chauchina on April 25, 1839. On April 4, 1859 she married Manuel de Cantos Romero, but she was widowed very early and with three children to support: Jose, Diego and Francesco, whom she tried to educate in a Christian way by setting a good example through prayer and works of Christian charity. One of her sons was killed by a man in a tavern in the village of Granada where Rosaria and her children lived as caretakers of a farmhouse or farmhouse. God's Mercy put the poor widow to the test by making the murderer seek refuge in her own home. When the woman learned from another of her sons what happened, she, although feeling torn by pain, did not feel like betraying the man by bringing him to justice and simply told him:  "See what you did... but nothing will bring me back my son ... I forgive you ... even the Virgin forgave the executioners of her Son o...

Day 331: April 08 Our Lady of Basella, Urgnano, Bergamo, Italy On 8 and 17 April 1356 the Blessed Virgin appeared to Marina Cassone, a fifteen-year-old peasant girl. On the night between 7 and 8 April, a strong frost had fallen that had devastated the countryside; the following morning the girl ran to her father's field, called the Basella, to see the damage caused. Seeing the destruction of the crops, she burst into tears. Just then a Lady appeared to her, with a Child who gave her hand, who encouraged her, telling her also that in nine days she would have to return to that same place and that she would tell her who she was and what she wanted from her. On April 17 Marina saw the Lady again, still with the Child, who told her that she was the "Queen of Heaven", asking her to make a vow of perpetual virginity and adding that she had appeared to her for her consolation and that of the inhabitants of Urgnano. She also asked her to have her dig in the place where she placed ...

Day 330: April 07 Mosaic of the Annunciation of Kiev, St. Sophia Cathedral, Kiev, Ukraine In the Chronicle of Nestor, the result of older texts made between 1113 and 1118, it is told "where the Russian land draws its origin, who began to rule in Kiev," describing the very foundation of the city, which, according to tradition, the apostle Andrew already prophesied during a mission in close connection with the birth of Russia. The name derives from Kij, an East Slavic prince of the Polian lineage, who with his brothers Šček and Choriv would have started the creation of three settlements along the upper right bank of the Dnieper. On two columns that support the arch above the altar in St Sophia Cathedral, wonderfully preserved representations of the Annunciation are preserved.  On the north column we find the Archangel Gabriel depicted with his face turned towards the Theotokos , announcing the coming of Christ to the Blessed Virgin. He wears a white robe that bears three red, o...