OUR LADY OF MIRACLES, STONE THROWN MADE STATUE BLEED

Feast Day - May 6

A STONE WAS THROWN AT THE STATUE OF OUR LADY OF MIRACLES WHICH CAUSED IT TO BLEED, ROME, 1483

The present church of Our Lady of Peace, or Santa Maria Della Pace, in Rome, Italy, was built by Pope Sixtus IV after the city of Rome was  besieged by the Duke of Calabria. The Pope vowed that he would build a new church in Rome to honour Our Lady of peace could be restored between his Papal States and the cities of Florence - Milan and Naples.

Construction started in 1482 but the work could not  be completed until the time of Pope Innocent VIII.

According to different traditions, the particular site for the church was made because of an incident in which a drunken soldier had stabbed a statue of the Madonna in the breast, at which the figure had started bleeding as if it were alive. There is also another story that perhaps a stone was thrown at the image of Our Lady of Miracles that currently hangs over the high altar in the church of Our Lady of Peace, which subsequently started bleeding. In any event, the church was in fact built on the foundations of an earlier church known as Saint Andrea de Aquarizariis.

The venerated painting of Our Lady of Miracles depicts the Blessed Virgin Mary holding her Divine Child. It currently hangs over the high altar at the church, which was specifically designed by Carlo Maderno to display and enshrine the famous painting. The now famous image was once believed to have been venerated in the portico of St Andrew’s of the Watercarriers. There is also another famous fresco inside the church known as the Four Sibyls, which was painted by Raphael in the year 1514.