OUR LADY OF HELP

Day 272: February 8

Our Lady of Help, Minucciano, Lucca, Italy



This shrine started as a small oratory at the end of the 1400's, dedicated to the Our Lady of Help (Madonna del Soccorso), depicted by the Virgin who, with a serene face and a stick in her hand, defends a child who was about to be kidnapped by the devil.

In 1550 the bishop of the diocese of Luni, to which Minucciano territorially belonged, approved a lay confraternity dedicated to the Madonna del Soccorso. The priors chose a suitable person to guard this oratory as a hermit. The hermits who have lived from then until today in the Hermitage of Soccorso amount to twelve: today three live there, one of whom is a priest. All of them have been buried there, with the exception of the last, Marco Cortesi.

The Hermitage of the Blessed Virgin of Help in Minucciano is one of the sixteen hermitages that existed in the Garfagnana. It is about two kilometers from the village and, like many other Garfagnana hermitages, is located astride a ridge from which you can see a glimpse of Lunigiana. It was born as a hospice for the wayfarer which, since the gorge is embedded between the Riolo and Calvario hills, was the obligatory passage for those who descended into Lunigiana, before the construction of the carriage road.

Of the sixteen existing hermitages, only four are still functional with the hermit priest and the other friars.

It is called a hermitage because for almost half a millennium the hermitage and the church have been guarded by hermits. The hermit of the Madonna del Soccorso, like the other hermits, has the mission of guarding the sanctuary and welcoming the devotees who come to venerate Our Lady. He lives a life of prayer in isolation and earns his living with his work and with the offerings that the faithful leave for him; once he lived, also offering it to travelers, on what he collected from the quests he made in neighboring villages.

The church and the hermitage are accessed through a loggia with four barrel vaults. In front of the loggia there is a small garden with a fountain and a tiled avenue, as access to the hermitage. It consists of four cells where the hermits live, with a kitchen, dining room and library with about 7 thousand volumes.

100 meters from the hermitage there is a four-room building that serves as the headquarters of the confraternity of the Blessed Virgin of Help and as a home for guests or small groups for periods of spiritual retreat.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"We unite ourselves to you, O Mary, in magnifying the Lord for the great things He has done for you, in His continual Coming, His Solemn Entrance and His Glorious Dwelling in Temple of your soul and body!"

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

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