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"I am with you always." - Matthew 28:20
She Came
to the Field
On
May 26, 1432, a young woman named Giannetta de Vacchi was working in the fields
near the town of Caravaggio in Lombardy when a woman appeared before her,
luminous, serene, standing on the ground without crushing the grass beneath her
feet.
The woman identified herself as the Virgin Mary. She spoke words of comfort and
instruction to Giannetta, told her to call the people to penance and prayer,
and pointed to a spot on the ground where a spring of water would appear as a
sign. As Our Lady disappeared, the spring burst from the earth. Giannetta, who
had been suffering from a serious illness, was healed.
The Bishop of Cremona investigated and declared the apparition worthy of
belief. A chapel was built over the spring, which has flowed continuously ever
since, with numerous healings attributed to it. The sanctuary of Caravaggio
grew over the following centuries into one of the great Marian pilgrimage sites
of northern Italy.
Giannetta was not seeking a vision. She was working. She was in a field, doing
what needed doing, dealing with an illness that had not gone away. And Our Lady
came to her there, in the ordinary place, during the ordinary work, into the
ordinary suffering. She did not wait for a church or a shrine. She came to the
field.
She always comes to the field.
Today's Gospel - Mark 10:28-31
Peter
said to Jesus: "We have given up everything and followed you." And
Jesus answered: "Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up
house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my
sake and for the sake of the gospel, who will not receive a hundred times more
now in this present age."
A hundred times more. Not someday only, but now, in this present age.
Giannetta gave up her plans for a day in the field and received a spring of
healing water, a visitation from the Virgin, and a story that has drawn
millions of pilgrims for six centuries. She did not know what she was giving
up. She did not know what she was about to receive.
The exchange is always disproportionate in our favor. That is the logic of
grace.
A Prayer
Our
Lady of Caravaggio, you who appeared to a sick woman in a field and brought
healing, water, and renewed faith, appear to us in the fields of our ordinary
lives.
We are working. We are tired. We are sometimes carrying illness or worry or
grief that we have learned to work around because what else can you do.
Come to us where we are. We are not in a cathedral. We are in our field. Touch
us. Let a spring burst forth in the dry places of our hearts.
Our Lady of Caravaggio, pray for us. Amen.
Reflection
Our
Lady did not appear to Giannetta in a church or at a prayer meeting. She
appeared in a working field, to a sick woman doing her daily tasks.
Where is your field today, the ordinary, unremarkable place where you spend
most of your hours? Have you ever consciously invited Our Lady into that
specific place? What would it mean to expect her presence there?
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely shared.
