OUR LADY OF TEARS

Day 337: April 14

Our Lady of Tears, Albino, Bergamo, Italy



Around the year 1651 a boy lived in the village of Parre in the Seriana Valley: Paolo Bigoni of Gherardo. Being from a very poor family, at the age of only 10 he was placed as a family with a shepherd in Val Gandino. While he was leading the sheep to pasture, it happened that one day he happened to be an innocent and unnoticed spectator of a horrendous crime. Some brigands attacked a poor traveler at gunpoint, robbed him of what he had and then abandoned him on the road covered with wounds as a result of which he died. The scoundrels were about to flee but when they realized that the boy Paolo at a certain distance had witnessed that cowardly murder, fearing that sooner or later he would have to denounce them to the authorities, or to his family, they attacked Paolo and not at all moved by his tears and invocations, they cut his tongue up to the jaws, making him completely mute.

The unhappy boy wandered around the villages of the valley for four years stretching out his hand, begging for a piece of bread to live his life, arousing compassion, but did not receive help. Eventually he was able to find a job as an apprentice in a forge in Nembro. Shortly after, however, he was fired and had to leave Nembro and take the road to his native town, Parre. But when he arrived in Fiorano he met his father, an excellent Christian. Discouraged by seeing all human hope vanish, they turn to Our Lady with all confidence and decided to go to the small church of Pianto in Albino to invoke comfort and help. It was September 18, 1655. They knelt devoutly in front of the chapel and with their eyes fixed on the Simulacrum, with all the ardor of Faith, the father recites three Our Fathers and Hail Marys, urging his son to mentally repeat these prayers. They also added the Creed.

As soon as the recitation of the Creed finished, the boy felt his mouth fill like a honeycomb and at the same time he felt his severed tongue return to normal. The child uttered a cry of joy and began to speak quickly. Father and son were beside themselves with amazement, they embraced tenderly, thanked the Celestial Benefactress with tears and resumed their journey to Parre.

Although there were no means of communication at that time except the direct word, the astonishing news spread in a flash throughout the Seriana Valley, throughout the province and beyond, arousing, as it is easy to imagine, intense emotion and general enthusiasm.

Cornaro wrote that the Bishop of Bergamo, Monsignor Luigi Grimani, then ordered a severe trial of what had happened. And the Commission in charge, after a long and severe examination, reconfirmed the authenticity of the miracle.

This miracle of the tongue cut off and reappeared after almost 4 years awakened and greatly increased devotion to Our Lady of Weeping. This increase has always manifested itself in the form of feasts and religious functions, pilgrimages, solemn and private votive Masses, graces received, privileges granted which were followed by restoration and embellishment works of the Sanctuary.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"O Mary, you have no need that I myself, or others on my behalf, suggest and pressure you to come to me to visit, to glorify the Lord with me, to help me to correspond to divine grace and to follow the divine designs, to cooperate with divine action."

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

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