Walk with Mary throughout the Year

Day 238: January 05 Santa Maria in Aracoeli , Campidoglio , Rome, Italy The whole month of January is dedicated to the Child Jesus, so here is another beautiful story that sees him together with his Mother Mary Most Holy in an apparition in Rome in the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli . On the Capitoline Hill stands the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli , inside which the miraculous "Holy Child" is kept. There are numerous testimonies of healings from serious illnesses and even there is talk of resurrection from the dead. It is said that the lips of this Holy Baby Jesus turn red when he is about to grant a grace and white when the case that presents itself to him is hopeless. It was St Helena, mother of Emperor Constantine, who built the church of Santa Maria in Capitolio here. The name change came as a result of a vision. The legend reported in the Mirabilia Urbis Romae  states that a mysterious woman with a child in her arms appeared saying:  "This is the altar of th...

Day 237: January 04 Our Lady of the Roses, Albano Sant'Alessandro, Bergamo, Italy A few kilometers from Bergamo, on the road to Trescore Balneario , in a pleasant plain, lies Albano Sant'Alessandro, a town  illustrious   for its Roman origins, for many historical events and for bloody battles betwee n Guelphs and Ghibellines. Today it is renowned for the beautiful Sanctuary of the Our Lady of the  Roses. On the night between 3 and 4 January 1417, two merchants from Romagna, on their way from Brescia to Bergamo, found themselves lost in a bush near the village called Albano. Bergamo is only eight kilometers away, but there was no escape for them: in the dark, among brambles and swamps covered by snow, they felt like they were dying of cold and fear. They then turned fervently to the Lord, invoked Our Lady and made a vow to build a chapel, if they managed to free themselves from that desperate situation. Suddenly from the sky, rays of light broke the darkness and a strip o...

Day 236: January 03 Our Lady of Tears of Blood, Maròpati , Reggio Calabria, Italy Because of the blasphemies against the most holy name of Jesus and Mary and other grave sins ... Our Lady of the Rosary of Tears of Blood has been crying for over 40 years! The small village where blasphemy happened openly, has now become a place of Marian veneration where the Holy Rosary is recited every day. The Municipal Secretary of Maròpati , C. Laganà , writes:  "The prodigious event of Maròpati is a shocking Marian explosion – as never happened elsewhere – of bloody pain and immense pity". Mar òpati is a town 12 km from the railway station and the motorway of Rosarno (Reggio Calabria), it has 1,500 souls. A humble person, a secular Franciscan, very faithful to the Bishop and the Parish Priest, who suffers and prays day and night, was Our Lady's confidant. In a letter to his Spiritual Director Fr Alfonso Di Bartolo (already twice Provincial Superior of the Calabrian Capuchins) he w...

Day 235: January 02 Our Lady of Prompt Succor During the French Revolution of the late 18th century, priests and religious were persecuted and often had to go into hiding in order to administer the Sacraments and keep their vocation and apostolates. This is what happened with the Ursuline nuns of the Convent of Pont-Saint-Esprit. One of the nuns, Agathe Gensoul , who could no longer use her religious name, Mother St Michel, still lived her vocation, starting a school with another Ursuline, Sophie Ricard. Agathe had a cousin who was an Ursuline also, but who lived in America, in New Orleans, which had been at that time under Spanish domain, but had been taken back by the French. Fearing French persecution, the Spanish Ursulines there went back to Spain, which left the convent in need of more nuns. So Agathe or Mother St Michel, applied to the bishop for the transfer to New Orleans, who refused her request because of the trouble in France. He told her that the Pope would have to approve ...