Walk with Mary throughout the Year

Day 342: April 20 Our Lady of the Slap, Vercelli, Italy The ancient statue of Our Lady of the thirteenth century is made from a single piece of white marble. On the left cheek she has a large livid spot, as if she had received a blow. A tradition tells that in 1200 a certain scandalous drinker and blasphemer, for having remained without the possibility of satisfying his passion, with a sacrilegious gesture hit the statue with a strong slap right on the left cheek. The mark would remain indelible in the holy Image. Another legend of the foundation of the sanctuary tells that a player, in the first half of the sixteenth century, angry at having lost, would have hit the statue of Our Lady kept in the cathedral of Vercelli, which would have started to bleed. The player, unable to leave the church, would later be executed. Since then it has become a destination of devotion especially on the occasion of epidemics and calamities. The statue of the Virgin, after the miracle of the slap, was ke...

Day 342: April 19 Our Lady of Lyons, France St Pothinus, the Apostle of Gaul, is said to have kept a painting of Our Lady in an underground chapel that now sits beneath the church of St Nazaire in Lyons, where many Christians suffered death in the Ancient Forum on the hill called "Hill of Blood." In 1186 the Canons of the Cathedral began to build a larger church above the sanctuary. In thanksgiving for the care of his son by Saint Pothinus, King Louis VII of France made a pilgrimage to Lyon, where he had a votive tablet made in front of the sanctuary of Our Lady. In 1466, King Louis XI founded a daily Mass in perpetuity, always followed by the solemnly sung Salve Regina . Vast pilgrimages had come to seek Mary's help, especially in times of famine and pestilence. During the plague of 1643, it was decided to dedicate the city to Our Lady. Immediately all traces of the plague vanished and, until 1792, twenty-five Masses were celebrated every day in thanksgiving. During the ...

Day 341: April 18 Our Lady of Good Health, Monteortone, Padua, Italy On the Euganean Hills, on the outskirts of Abano Terme, there is a famous Marian shrine, which for over five centuries, following an apparition of the Virgin, is a place of convergence of the Christian faith of the neighboring Venetian-Euganean peoples: it is the sanctuary of the Madonna della Salute (Our Lady of Good Health) of Monteortone. It is an artistic monument of faith, which consecrates to the Mother of God this very fortunate stretch of Venetian land, miraculously visited and miraculously blessed by Mary’s maternal assistance. After many battles and following serious injuries that made the articulation of his lower limbs difficult, Pietro Falco went to Monteortone (Padua) on the advice of friends and doctors to search for healing or, at least, some relief from the injuries. He was a God-fearing man and had experienced the special protection, during his actions in warfare, by miraculously escaping death many ...

Day 340: April 17 Our Lady of the Miracles in Corbetta, Milan, Italy This sensational news could be considered the result of pure fantasy, if it did not have the support of historical data. The three boys who played in the square were: Cesare dello Stampino, Antonio della Torre and his brother Giovanni Angelo, ten years old, deaf and dumb from birth, familiarly called Navello. On the façade of the church of St Nicolas there was a beautiful image of Our Lady, seated on a throne, with the Child Jesus in her lap. That day, as every day, three boys were playing on the square in front, when suddenly a cry was heard, in an articulate voice: The Child! Our Lady! It interrupted the game and attracted everyone's attention. It was Giovanni himself who first noticed that the Child Jesus had come down to the square to play with them. His wonder flowed into a scream of joy and at the same time he regained the use of speech. The Child Jesus, having left the painting, had taken to the square, obs...

Day 339: April 16 Our Lady of Consolation, Paternopoli, Avellino, Italy The parish church of St Nicolas of Bari of 1522, preserves, inside, in the chapel dedicated to Santa Maria della Consolazione (Our Lady of Consolation), a much venerated painting by F. Fiorentino, which represents Mary seated on the throne of glory with Jesus in her arms, an angel holding the canopy, while, at the feet, there is St Augustine and his mother St Monica. In the sacristy there are numerous sculptures and wooden reliquaries from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The devotion to Mary in Paternopoli is very ancient. There are documents that date back to 1142 the devotion to Mary officiated by the monks of Montevergine in a small church. The resumption of the Marian devotion dates back to 1751, originating from a miraculous event which was followed by others. On April 16, 1751, among the carpenters who worked in the parish church of St Nicolas of Bari, in which a canvas depicting Our Lady was kept in...

Day 338: April 15 Our Lady of Divine Mercy, Allada, Republic of Benin, West Africa In the year 1856, Bishop Melchior de Marion Brésillac, founder of the Society of African Missions (SMA), asked Propaganda Fide (now the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples) to send him and his missionaries to Dahomey (today known as the Republic of Benin). In 1860, the Holy See established the Apostolic Vicariate of Dahomey and entrusted it to the Society of African Missions (SMA). Fr Francesco Borghero SMA (from Italy) was appointed Interim Superior of the Vicariate. With Fathers Francisco Fernandez (Spanish) and Louis Edde (French), Father Borghero set sail from Toulon on January 5, 1861. Only Fathers Borghero and Fernandez arrived at the port of Ouidah on April 18, 1861 to begin the evangelization of Benin. The late Archbishop of Cotonou, Mgr Isidoro de Souza, who worked so hard to establish democracy and peace in the country, wanted to provide his diocese with a center of pilgrimage and Ma...