OUR LADY OF GIBILMANNA

Day 328: April 05

Our Lady of Gibilmanna, Cefalù, Palermo, Italy



On Easter Sunday, April 5, 1534, a ship carrying the statue of Our Lady and Child took refuge from a storm near the village of Castello di Roccella. Mary appeared to a Capuchin friar who lived in Gibilmanna, telling him to go and get the statue wrapped in a woolen blanket and build a shrine.

The statue was loaded onto a cart pulled by oxen, which left free, after days of travel, stopped on the promontory overlooking Cefalù, where the current Sanctuary of Our Lady of Gibilmanna would stand.

In 1576 Father Sebastiano Maio di Gratteri during the celebration of Mass, in the ancient church, had an apparition of Jesus, who invited him to paint it as he saw it.

Father Sebastiano, remedying the colors of the crushed plants present in the area, painted a painting, currently exhibited in the Sanctuary. Father Sebastiano Maio, formerly of the Observant Minors, was the founder of the Capuchin community of the Sanctuary of Gibilmanna.

In 1619 Father Sigismondo from Pollina was elected "guardian" of the friary, assisted by his brother Germano Urbano (born Ottaviano and Vincenzo Minneci), and it was decided to build a new church in place of the ancient Benedictine chapel, insufficient to contain pilgrims. The church was completed in 1623 and reopened for worship in 1625. This was enlarged to the west and equipped with a sacristy and an access staircase. The façade was preceded by a portico.

The venerated image of Our Lady and Child, a Byzantine-style fresco from the old Benedictine chapel, was transferred to the new church, which was detached and inserted into the wall of the chapel of Our Lady. The statue of the Virgin and the ancient Crucifix that had spoken to Father Sebastiano, Fr. Ivone of Messina, were also transferred. A new painting depicting the Assumption was made for the main altar. The old chapel was then definitively demolished.

Inside the sanctuary there is an ancient wooden crucifix, perhaps from the time of the Benedictines. This crucifix spoke to Fr Ivone of Messina saying: "here my Mother rules, to her address your prayers for the needs of the family."

The portico that included the church collapsed and the façade of the church was redone in neo-Gothic style in 1907. The churchyard was adorned in 1927, in place of the previous iron cross, with a monument dedicated to St Francis.

In 1954 Pope Pius XII declared Our Lady of Gibilmanna patroness of the diocese and city of Cefalù. In 1958 the Seraphic Seminary was inaugurated in the friary.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"Come to our soul, O most holy Mary, after every victory, after every communion and, especially immediately after the passage to eternity, as in your assumption into heaven! Since the soul is a heaven of the Lord, may you celebrate your assumption in her!"

(Justin Russolillo, Devotional, Vocationist Editions, Pianura, 2009, p. 122)

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