OUR LADY OF THE ASSUMPTION

Day 353: May 01

Our Lady of the Assumption, Lonigo, Venice, Italy



In 1486 three shoemakers lived in Verona: Guglielmo, Gianantonio and Giampietro. They came from Novara and had found work in the veronese city, in via della Beverara. Giampietro had managed to set aside 50 ducats, a considerable sum for those times. Envious and greedy, the other two friends agreed to invite him to the Lonigo market, with the secret intent of killing and robbing him.

They left on April 30 (as historian Bertani says, but others report on April 29). In those times of violence, even the artisans went about carrying arms with them: Gianantonio armed himself with a double-edged knife (pistolese), Guglielmo with a sword and Giampietro with a dagger. They spent the night in Lonigo and on Monday morning they went to the market where they bought, among other things, white cloth.

After lunch they were already on the way back. Just a few kilometers away from the town, near the church of St Peter in Lamentese, they stopped: Giampietro in fact, for personal necessity, left the road temporarily. It was then that Gianantonio and Guglielmo implemented their murderous plan: Gianantonio jumped against him and hit him in the heart with the knife; Guglielmo helped him, keeping the victim on the ground, making sure that the blows would strike through. After the assassination, they seized the cloth and money bag and hid in the nearby church of St Peter to divide the spoils.

They deposited everything on the altar and began to count the duchies. But Guglielmo, looking up at the painting of Our Lady of the Assumption, repented and said: "We’ve done wrong!" Gianantonio replied: "Who knows?" Guglielmo replied: "God and the Virgin Mary!" Gianantonio, cursing, concluded: "If I were to believe that this Virgin Mary knew what I did, I would give her ten wounds!"

Saying so, he took the knife still bloody and hit the image in the left eye and chest. Blood flowed from the wounds and the painting changed its appearance: the Virgin separated her hands and lowered her head, brought her left hand on the wounded temple, in an act of pain and her right hand on the belt near her chest.

The two criminals, frightened, fled to Verona, but the crime and the prodigy were immediately discovered by the locals who reported the incident. The Veronese authorities managed to condemn and execute the repentant, but the heinous attacker escaped, banished forever by the Serenissima Republic of Venice. In short, the place became a destination for devotion and pilgrimage.

With the motive to bring to light on the miracle, the bishop of Vicenza, Pietro Bruti, started the investigation. As early as 1492 the process could be said to have ended, seven witnesses had proved its truthfulness: Our Lady not only had moved, but she continued to work miracles by answering the prayers of the faithful.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"We unite ourselves, O Most Holy Mary, to the saints and angels, to your parents Joachim and Anne, to your spouse Joseph, we revere you as we salute you from the part of the Most Holy Trinity, full of grace in the mystery of your Holy Visitation."

(Justin Russolillo, Devotional, Vocationist Editions, Pianura, 2009, p. 196)

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