OUR LADY OF THE MIRACLES

Day 340: April 17

Our Lady of the Miracles in Corbetta, Milan, Italy



This sensational news could be considered the result of pure fantasy, if it did not have the support of historical data. The three boys who played in the square were: Cesare dello Stampino, Antonio della Torre and his brother Giovanni Angelo, ten years old, deaf and dumb from birth, familiarly called Navello.

On the façade of the church of St Nicolas there was a beautiful image of Our Lady, seated on a throne, with the Child Jesus in her lap.

That day, as every day, three boys were playing on the square in front, when suddenly a cry was heard, in an articulate voice: The Child! Our Lady! It interrupted the game and attracted everyone's attention. It was Giovanni himself who first noticed that the Child Jesus had come down to the square to play with them. His wonder flowed into a scream of joy and at the same time he regained the use of speech. The Child Jesus, having left the painting, had taken to the square, observed with satisfaction the playthings of the three boys. Even Our Lady, almost surprised, noticed the Child's escape, and also went down to the square to take him back, like a good mother.

The boys, recovering from their amazement, left the game and ran to tell their parents about the fact, and the news spread in a flash, in the small village and beyond. The episode seemed to be the result of the imagination of the boys, but the irrefutable proof remained: Navello spoke quickly, while before he was mute and deaf!

It was the first miracle of a long series: within just 80 days after the apparition, there were about fifty of them. Of the former, the day and the name of the lucky one were also remembered: Serafino Barchetto on April 20, Beltramina Marcotti on the 21st, Pietro da Siena on the 22nd, Tommaso Ferrario and many others, so much so that Our Lady of Corbetta got the name of Our Lady of Miracles.

The following year 1556, the Chapter of Canons, in order to welcome the numerous pilgrims and to protect the painting exposed to the elements, decided to build a Sanctuary, appointing a commission to follow the work; works that proceeded slowly in those calamitous years, due to the onset, among the many difficulties, also of history and terrible plague, remembered by Manzoni in "The Betrothed", and of the numerous wars of invasion.

However, already in 1560 the Roman Curia began the process for the examination of the authenticity of the Apparition, and in 1562, at the request of the young Cardinal St Charles Borromeo, Pope Pius IV granted a plenary indulgence, in the form of a Jubilee.

Only at the end of the 1700's can the Upper Sanctuary be said to be complete, but it will have its current appearance only after the works carried out in 1800 and 1900. Despite the multiplicity of architectural lines, the Church is of its harmonious beauty.

After extensive and expensive restorations, the Sanctuary was consecrated in 1954, the Marian Year. Then, in 1955, the fourth centenary of the Apparition, the Chapter of St Peter's in the Vatican granted the faculty to crown the Image of Our Lady and Child. The precious crowns were placed on the heads of Our Lady and Child Jesus, on April 17 of that year, by the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, now St Pope Paul VI.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"You are sent by the Lord and carried by your own heart to those who, for special vocation, must cooperate with Jesus and the holy Spirit in the work of redemption and sanctification, as the Baptist."

(Justin Russolillo, Devotional, Vocationist Editions, Pianura, 2009, p. 162)

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