OUR LADY OF FAGGIO

 Day 77; July 26



The story goes that in 1672 the Blessed Virgin told a shepherd boy that she wished to be venerated at a certain place in the beech woods near Castelluccio in central Italy, whereupon the child discovered a terracotta Madonna affixed to one of the trees there. The 7 inch Madonna of the Beech was moved to a wayside shrine, and then, in 1722, to its own mountain sanctuary. Until 1964 a caretaker lived in the hermitage there. Since then a volunteer opens the chapel only in summer on Sundays. In 1975 the sacred image was stolen and replaced with a copy. Since 1756, an annual pilgrimage on Ascension Day brings the image to the town and back again, and on St. Anne’s day, July 26, a procession goes to the site of the beech tree, recently fallen.

St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"Take into your hands the governing and teaching force of our intellects, the key to our hearts, the direction of our lives and affairs, forever."

(Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, Newark, Vocationist Fathers, 1996, p. 153)


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