OUR LADY OF MIRACLES

Day 209: December 07

Our Lady of Miracles of Saronno, Varese, Italy

The Sanctuary of Saronno was built following the miraculous healing of a young man from the village named Pietro Morandi called "Pedretto", who had been suffering for several years from a serious form of sciatica that immobilized him on his straw mattress and did not allow him to walk. It was in the years around 1460 and no later than 1462. At the intersection of the Varesina road, then called the Lugano road because the road that from Monza, crossing Saronno, led and leads to Ticino to reach Piedmont, there was a small chapel, a small shrine, with a statue of Our Lady holding the Child Jesus in her arms; a terracotta statue dated to the second half of the fourteenth century. In front of this little chapel, on a cold winter night, the miracle took place. Poor Pedretto had been bedridden for about six years when one night, while he was tormented by pain and spasm, his room lit up with a sudden brilliance, in which a beautiful Woman appeared and said to him three times: "Pietro, if you want to be healed, go to the chapel in Varesina Street, build a chapel where the simulacrum of Our Lady stands, the means will never be lacking..."

Calling his family, he manifested to them his intention to go to the chapel, while a sudden vigor spread throughout his whole person. When he arrived at the place indicated to him by the Lady, Pedretto began to pray and then, overwhelmed by fatigue, fell asleep. When he woke up it was already dawn and he found himself completely healed. Grateful to Our Lady, he worked hard to fulfill Mary's wish: the construction of the Sanctuary was completed in 1511. The documents of the historical archive tell us that many other healings followed the first.

However, it should be emphasized that the healing of the young Pedretto is not the result of an invention or a legend, it is proven by an official document of the Church: the "Canonical information process on the origin of the Sanctuary of Mary of Miracles of Saronno." A process desired by St Charles Borromeo, then archbishop of Milan who, in compliance with the provisions of the Council of Trent, wanted testimonies and verifications that would demonstrate, without any doubt, the miraculous origin of the extraordinary event from which the Sanctuary originated. In that century the heretics strongly mocked for every supernatural event attributed to Our Lady and the saints.

The canonical trial was held in Saronno on April 6, 1578, and sworn testimonies were collected from witnesses, as stated in the document drawn up at the end of the trial. The trial was instituted because the earliest documents on the origins of the Sanctuary had been lost.

The people of Saronno wanted to give thanks to Our Lady and, after the construction of some churches, which soon fell into ruins, especially because the influx of devotees of Saronno and pilgrims, which came from all over the countryside, was constantly growing, on May 8, 1498 the construction of the first part of the current basilica, the eastern one, began. The bell tower of the Sanctuary of Saronno was one of the most beautiful and oldest in Lombardy.

The influx of faithful and pilgrims was now so great that it was no longer possible for everyone to enter the church during religious services. This is documented by the numerous requests for authorization to celebrate outdoors submitted to the Archbishop's Curia of Milan. We know that the Council of Trent had prohibited the celebration of Mass outside the church; celebrating outdoors required a dispensation.  Thus, the administrators of the Sanctuary (six deputies, elected by the people of Saronno)  decided to expand the church, lengthening it. Between 1560 and 1578, in two successive periods, the church was extended with five bays over three naves. After 168 years from its foundation, the construction, embellishment, and decoration of the Sanctuary were finally completed. The people of Saronno had built a church that aroused the admiration of all.

At the end of the 17th century, the Saronno Sanctuary owned land worth 3,000 Milanese perches and 14 houses. This continued until Napoleon's arrival in Italy and the establishment of the Cisalpine Republic, when the assets of ecclesiastical institutions, including those of the Sanctuary, were confiscated.  This plunder was compounded by the abolition of deputies by the Austrian government of Lombardy-Venetia in 1817; a slow recovery only occurred at the beginning of the 20th century.

St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"Practice doing everything through Mary, with Mary and in Mary and for Mary. Doing everything through Mary means that we must be moved and guided by her rather than our own will, in everything we do. In order to obtain this, one must renounce one's own will before and during each action and offer oneself again to Mary saying in our heart or even verbally: "I renounce my own will and I consecrate myself to you, my dear Mother"."

(Ascension, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Father, Newark, 1997, pp. 422-423)