OUR LADY OF MIRACLES OF BRESCIA

Day 13: May 23

The church of Our Lady of Miracles, Brescia (Santa Maria dei Miracoli) is located in Corso Martiri della Liberta in Brescia, Italy. History has it that an epidemic of bubonic plague affected the place between 1480 and 1484. The symptoms of the plague started with a severe headache and then the lymph glands would be swollen. In extreme situations, the victim's body would start to decay before he/she would have a sudden death. It is reported that on an average of two hundred people died daily due to the plague. As a result, the city population which was just below forty thousand dropped to less than four thousand in a matter of a year.

There was a painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the outside of a house. Those who prayed before this image received some miraculous healing. The popular piety of the town grew rapidly and a church was built to honor the image of this miraculous image.

The Catholic church began negotiations with the family to buy the house in 1486. The construction of the church began in 1488 and was completed only in 1500. The miraculous image which was once seen in front of the house is now enshrined in the church. The elaborately carved façade of the church is made of marble, and is treasured as an outstanding example of Renaissance sculpture in that region. The church was struck by allied bombs during World War II, and was so damaged that it had to be almost completely rebuilt after the war. The façade was preserved, however, due to heavy wood planking that the people of Brescia used to cover the façade to protect it from shrapnel and exploding munitions.

There are several other shrines of this name in Italy and elsewhere (Aubervilliers and Mauriac in France), sometimes called “of Portents,” which name particularly commemorated a series of miracles recorded in several parts of Italy in 1796-97.

The observance of a feast of Our Lady of Miracles is a very widespread custom, on a great variety of dates. I can find no reference to the Blessed Virgin’s hair or her glove that were once preserved there.

TO OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL VISITATION

O most holy Mary, allow that our slave of love may pray to you! Come to my soul, to our home, to our work as to the sacred cenacle. Come and remain with us in a perpetual visitation. Come, O holy Mary!

You are very much present, O Mary, in the celebration of the holy sacrifice, in our communion with the blessed sacrament, in our administration of the treasures of redemption, in all our personal relations with the holy Church, with the holy Family, with the divine Trinity.

We want to endeavor to be pleasing to the Lord. Grant that we may find grace in the presence of the Lord! May you, O true mother of God, form us soul spouse of God, soul daughter of God, as you mother of Jesus!

Come to our soul, O most holy Mary, after every victory, after every communion and, especially, immediately after the passage to eternity, as in your assumption into heaven! Since the soul is a heaven of the Lord, may you celebrate your assumption in her!

To you the triumph of the soul, to you the enthronement of Jesus in my soul, since you had a very relevant part in every elevation of the soul. Every new grade of grace in us is your glory, and your glory glorifies Jesus in us, glorifies the holy Trinity.

Come, holy Mary, with a perpetual visitation to our souls, to our work, to fill them of your song of humility and of truth, of adoration and thanksgiving to the Lord for all the good that he does for us in all his works.

In his mercy and in his justice, in his omnipotence and wisdom, in his longanimity and fidelity, in his holiness and charity the Lord wanted to reveal and glorify in our salvation and sanctification: Magnificat anima mea Dominum!

Bring us with you, O most holy Mary, in your perpetual visitation to all souls: to all families, parishes and dioceses; to all the religious houses and holy works and temple of God; make us as your instruments of your perpetual visitation.

Make us the veil of your presence and action, in order to the presence and action of Jesus. Make use of us also for the conversion of every soul and religious of God. Grant that we may be precursor and apostle of Jesus, for universal sanctification. Amen!

(St Justin Russolillo, Devotional, 2nd English Edition, Kerala, 2009, pp. 122-123)