OUR LADY OF FIRE

Day 268: February 4

Our Lady of Fire, Forlì, Romagna, Italy



The devotion to Our Lady of Fire (Madonna del Fuoco) began many years ago, in 1428, when the miracle that many Forlì people witnessed it happening. On the night between 4 and 5 February a fire broke out that destroyed a school, which was located in what is now Via Cobelli, where the church of the Miracle is located today. Lombardino da Riopetroso had been teaching in that school for a few weeks. Not much is known about this teacher: he had arrived in Forlì at the beginning of that year from his village of Valbona, between Bagno di Romagna and Santa Sofia and had taught his students not only to read and write but also to pray in front of the image of Our Lady that was in the school. It was a drawing, more precisely a woodcut, that is, a printed drawing depicting the Madonna surrounded by many saints.

Those students are also remembered in the famous hymn to Our Lady of Fire composed in 1928 by two important priests from Forlì, Mons Adamo Pasini and Mons Giuseppe Prati, more familiarly known by the name of Don Pippo. That hymn entitled "The Vivid Flame" is also sung today on the occasion of the feast and says at a certain point: "Of lively children, in ancient times, the crowd gathered in humble school, with devout hymns, with sweet words with the name of Mother to pray to you."

When the school burned down, the people of Forlì realized with amazement that the image of the Madonna had remained intact, had not burned and was not even blackened by smoke. A few days later, on February 8, the image was carried in procession to the nearby Cathedral and placed first next to the main altar then in the chapel that was dedicated to her and is still located today. Over the centuries, the people of Forlì have flocked to Our Lady not only on the occasion of the feast, February 4, but every time they have faced difficulties and dangers, such as wars and earthquakes, entrusting themselves to her as Mother and Patroness.

Special traditions related to the feast have also been born, such as that of the Fiorita at the column of the Madonna del Fuoco in Piazza del Duomo where Pope St John Paul II also stopped to pray with the children when he came to visit Forlì in May 1986. Other traditions are to light the candles on the windows on the evening of Christmas Eve and to eat the "piadina della Madonna" on February 4th.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"From this realm of grace, you shower upon us, poor sinners, your treasures of grace; graces that purify us from every stain; graces that free us from every pain; graces that overpower ever enemy, O Mary."

(Justin Russolillo, Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, Newark, 1996, p. 156)

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