OUR LADY OF THE CROSS

Day 295: March 03

Our Lady of the Cross, Cubas de la Sagra, Madrid, Spain

The Apparitions of the Virgin, with the title of Our Lady of the Cross (Santa Maria della Croce), began on March 3, 1449. These are some well-documented apparitions ("More is known about the apparitions of Inés Martínez in 1449 than about any other similar episode in Spain until the twentieth century", writes William A. Christian) that gave rise to the "House" of the Virgin, later to a Shrine and finally to the Monastery, through the work of Mother Juana of the Cross, called "La Santa Juana" (1481-1534).

At that time, the region of Castile was in the storm of wars between princes, for which the people paid the price for the numerous dead and prisoners. On that Monday, March 3, 1449, twelve-year-old Inés was looking after the pigs of her father, Alfonso Martinez. Their family was the poorest in the village. It was about "around noon" when a "very magnificent" Lady appeared, resplendent in her "gold linens," speaking to her in the Castilian of the time: "What are you doing here, child?" "I look after the pigs." "Why do you do it on St Mary's Day, Friday?"  "Because my parents command me to." "You do well, but fast on the days of the feast of St Mary, to the Night Guards, because those who do so gain 80,000 years of forgiveness. Did you get it right?. I command you to tell all to confess, to raise up and strengthen their souls; that they may know that otherwise a great pestilence will come with sorrows... an evil like the plague of which many will die." "But then will my father, my mother, and I die of this pestilence?" "It will be as God wills it."

Then the "Lady disappeared" according to the terms reported in the declarations under oath collected by the chaplain of the time. Poverty did not prevent Inès' family, who went to confession from the age of six, from being very devout. She recited the Holy Rosary guarding the beasts, and the night guards of the saints from the age of four. However, the appearance of the "slender, very magnificent" Lady with a "sweet" voice frightened the visionary. Continuing her work, she recited the Holy Rosary in one piece; but fearing her family's remarks, the little girl told no one about it. On Tuesday, March 4, she went out with the same companions, but towards the Torrejon stream this time. At the same time "around noon", another apparition of the Lady took place: "Child, why didn't you say what I ordered you to repeat yesterday?" "I didn't dare, I was afraid of not being believed." "I order you to say it, and if they don't believe you, I'll give you a sign that they believe you." "But who are you, my Lady?" "I won't say it now."

This time Inés told her parents what had happened... who did not believe and ordered her to be silent. On Friday the 7th, the visionary went to the locality of Prado Nuevo, New Prato, where, on an empty stomach, she took her pigs. At the same time the Lady returned, so magnificently decorated: "Child, have you said what I have commanded you?" "Yes, my Lady, my parents and others." "You must tell the priest and everyone, without inhibition or fear." 

Returning to the house, Inés repeated everything to her parents again. Her father scolded her: "My daughter, you lie." Her mother, on the other hand, encouraged her... and the news spread quickly.

On Sunday, March 9, the chaplain, Juan Gonzalez, arrived accompanied by some men from the parents of Inés Martinez. After listening to her, the priest said to the child: "Go there and if you see this Lady again, ask her for a sign so that we may believe." Then he left to celebrate the Holy Mass. Accompanied by her father and brother, Inés, with the pigs, took over the direction of the "Ciroleda", The Place of Cherries. Leaving her brother to guard the animals, she knelt, with her face on the ground, full of fear, anxiously asking the Lady to show herself. The whole village was waiting! Around noon... "Be relieved, child, don't be afraid." "Who are you, my Lady?" "I am the Blessed Virgin Mary."

Approaching the little girl, she grabbed her straight hand, and squeezing her fingers they find themselves "as rubberized, the thumb forming a cross with the others." As for her arm, it was "sore and as if dry up to the elbow." "Behold", said the Virgin, "go so that they may believe with this sign and with what you are going to suffer for them. Go to the church, at the end of Mass, show it to everyone so that they may believe what you say because you bear this sign."

It was at the end of the Mass that the priest saw her arrive in tears and kneel before the altar of Our Lady. Inés began to tell everything publicly. The whole village examined her hand, unable to loosen her fingers. Many deposited a kiss "on the miracle"....

"The chaplain, the mayor and all the good men of the place, very devoted to the Holy Virgin Lady, followed throughout the village in great fervor, carrying the crosses, candles and lighted candles, was in procession, undermined, with the children and Inés. They brought a Forest Cross to plant it in the very place where the said Lady had taken their hand", the chronicles attest.

Inés heard the Virgin calling her "Come over here." The procession stopped and the Forest Cross was handed back to the visionary who moved away, to go with the Virgin Mary, to her right: "They went with small steps but they arrived, we don't know how, in a flash", instead of the sign. Then, Our Lady took the Cross from Inés' hands and knelt towards the woods. Then getting up, she planted it in the ground "about noon" and knelt again, "the time of a psalm and a half". The Virgin Mary asked Inès to kneel down and tell the whole procession and that.... a church must be built here, which must be called Santa Maria. You will return with the procession. With some innocent children, you will stand before my altar until night. Two Masses must be said in my honor, at my altar.... Once these Masses have been said, you will have to go to Santa Maria de Guadalupe (in Estrémadure, Spain) where you will bring four wax books. You will stay two days. For prayer, the sign will be undone and will return." The procession reached the places where they were now, and saw the Cross planted by Mary and little Inés who repeated the message. Noticing slight traces of footsteps, some devoutly collected a little of this sandy soil. Then, leaving some stems there to guard the Cross, the procession left for the church where everything Mary had asked was done. Since Monday 10, all the villagers who had called those of the neighboring villages, began to leave "in general procession in honor and reverence to the Madonna up to her Cross.," Since the local Church took seriously what we would call today "an alleged apparition of the Virgin", they organized, from their return, the immediate trial of the case, in the church of Saint Andrew: in the presence of the religious and civil authorities, including notaries to draw up the acts of the witness statements. Then they left the same afternoon, on the back of a donkey and on horseback for Guadalupe, to... 150 km, with Inés, her father and some men. Four days of travel at the time. As she passed, Inés' paralyzed hand healed a first patient.

They arrived at the Sanctuary of Estrémadure on Friday the 14th at three in the afternoon. At that time, at its peak, the monastery had one hundred monks and was not only a place of pilgrimage for all of Europe and Portugal, but also the hospital was famous for being the best and most advanced medical school of the time. (First place in the world where autopsies began to be performed, with the authorization of the Holy See)

Good brothers and doctors joined that Inés' hand and arm must surely have been sick from her birth.

First surprise, Inés did not recognize, when she saw it, the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe, but described it as if she saw another Madonna, smaller "so minimal and so covered with gold, as she had appeared to him and who looked at her." The monks then locked her, for the night, in a cell inside a tower.

The second surprise, the next morning: monks and doctors found that Inés had regained the use of her hand. How? She had not seen the Virgin or anyone. How had the arm come back to life? And fingers a normal position? The monks humbly acknowledged "that they knew nothing about it."

On the way back, on Monday 17, one of the travelers fell ill: pain in his hips and severe fever (symptoms of the plague foretold?). Inés was asked to pray to the Virgin so that Our Lady will allow him to return home. Pains and fevers disappeared and everyone returned home safely.

On Wednesday 19, Inés returned to the Ciroleda and began to pray. The Madonna reappeared to her for what must have been the penultimate time. The little girl asked: "Madam, your Lordship told me that my hand would not open again before I came back here. Why was it not so? "In your great haste to question me, you misunderstood. Because I have sent you for this, to my House in Guadalupe, so that it may be decided there." Then when asked about a new sign, the Virgin replied "I will give them this sign.... Blessed are those who believe without seeing."

An astonishing phrase that seemed to refer to Is 6:10; Mt 13:13-15 and Jn 12:37-40. The first sign that the Virgin gave: the plague that made no victims, avoided thanks to the spontaneous faith of the village. Then, as time went by, countless miracles duly noted and a sanctuary always blessed.

As early as April 7, A. Carrillo of Acuna, Archbishop of Toledo, sent a letter authorizing the construction of the church requested "where Our Lady appeared" asking the two archpriests to conduct "with diligence memories and additional information... for we hear our service being performed for God our Lord."

On April 23, twenty witnesses were thus separately heard, with the help of "the private writer of the Roy... and of the notary public of his Court". Lost and found, the act comprises 36 pages, first-hand. Notaries record miraculous healings If they have not been able to benefit from the scientific verifications available to our time, the stories under oath of the eight first miracles were reported by "the apostolic notary and writer of the Roy, notary public in all its kingdoms, Juan Gonzalez de Roa".

Since April 9, a newborn girl was kept for lost. Her parents asked the Virgin for mercy and proposed to take her to the places, 8 km away, to the church under construction, and to make all possible offerings: the child was healed on the 15th.

During the following three years, until 1452, the notary gave notice of thirty-eight other cases: healings of patients of the heart, eyes, mute, diseases of all kinds and... of dead already in the shroud who get back up. He also mentions the inexplicable liberations of prisoners and survivors of fatal accidents who fell into a deep well, "a white butterfly guides one of them to the exit, then over eight kilometers." All of them, or their neighbors, invoked "Santa Maria della Croce", "because they had heard of the many miracles she performed" – and immediately after the visit, gifts and votive offerings were promised.

Beginning in 1452, another notary, Pedro Sanchez de Boro, described the most remarkable facts: real resurrections, as happened to Lazarus.

Today, a spring found in the courtyard of the convent, built on the sites of the apparition, gushes out, abundantly, at the foot of the statue of Notre Dame of the Cross: it is known, for example, that its water has restored the sight of a blind man. The construction of the chapel, "The House of the Virgin" and a hermitage, began immediately, as early as 1449. Starting in 1464, a group of "Sisters of Penance of St. Francis" lived in what was then called the béguinage. Traditions remain uncertain about the fate of little Inés. When she became a widow, would she end her life with the Poor Clares of Zamora?

St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"As every suffering of Jesus was your suffering, so too every grace, every glory, every child of those sufferings is also your grace, your glory and your child!"

(Justin Russolillo, Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, Newark, 1996, p. 158)