OUR LADY OF GOOD COUNSEL

Day 361: May 09

Our Lady of Good Counsel, Frigento, Avellino, Italy



The Sanctuary in Via Piano della Croce, dedicated to Our Lady of Good Counsel, was built in the place where, on May 9, 1920, a farmer, Carmine Capobianco, who had long dreamed of Our Lady who invited him to go and unearth it, found a small Majolica depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary of Good Counsel. The event stunned all the people of Frigento also because the fracture of the majolica at the height of the Virgin's forehead, caused by a clumsy blow of the hoe of Capobianco, proved his good faith of the same and the authenticity of the event. The parish priest, Don Generoso Ciullo, informed the people with the ringing of the bells of the Cathedral and other churches in procession with all the clergy, the confraternities and the people to venerate the sacred effigy in person. He communicated the event to the Bishop of the Diocese of Avellino, Monsignor Giuseppe Padula. A diocesan commission was set up to verify the reliability of the facts. After about a year, in May 1921, the Bishop gave his approval for the design and construction of a church that would house the precious majolica and blessed the first stone of the Sanctuary being built.

The image is a terracotta depicting Mary Most Holy holding Child Jesus in her arms in the act of clasping him to her heart and face.

Already in the first years of the history of the Sanctuary there were graces and wonders through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. It originally served as a monastic complex.

Today it is managed as a place of prayer and belongs to the Mother House of the Institute of the Franciscan Friars. The feast is on 9 and 10 May.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"We believe, O Mary, that as all graces come to us through you, so also through you come to us our vocation and mission. Grant that our Congregation, placed by the Blessed Trinity under your superiorship may remain faithful to its charism of animating, cultivating, forming all vocations to life, to faith and holiness and especially all vocations to priesthood and consecrated life."

(Justin Russolillo, Devotional, Vocationist Editions, Pianura, 2009, p. 234)

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