Our Lady of Good Counsel
The Image of Our Lady Good Counsel at Genazzano
On April 25, 1467 a mysterious icon of Virgin and Child appeared in a small unfinished and roofless church in the town of Genazzano, near Rome. As the story goes, the entire town had turned out for the annual feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist.
At about four o’clock in the afternoon, a multitude of witnesses saw a mysterious cloud descend upon the church. The church bells rang of their own accord, and the cloud parted revealing the portrait.
The image, fifteen inches wide by seventeen inches high, came to rest on a narrow ledge in the church and remains in that position to this day. The painting is a fresco, painted on a layer of plaster as thin and fragile as an eggshell.
It’s a beautiful, tender image.
Within weeks, two refugees from Albania arrived in Genazzano. They testified that the very same image was in a church in the Albanian town of Scutari only a few weeks earlier. When Scutari was on the verge of being overrun by Turkish Moslem invaders, the portrait miraculously relocated for its own protection. A Papal commission later verified that there was indeed an empty space in the plaster wall of the church at Scutari, the exact size of the portrait.
The fresco was originally painted on the wall of the Scutari church. Even today, it is virtually impossible to remove a fresco this way without destroying the image.
The building of the church in Genazzano was soon finished, and it became a place of pilgrimage. Within the first six months alone, over 170 healings and miracles were recorded.
Here’s the thing about miracles; they really do happen all the time. We have been trained all our lives to ignore them or discount them. Just think of how many times you’ve said in your life, “well, there must be a perfectly rational explanation for that”.
Sometimes the perfectly rational explanation is that it’s a miracle.
If you want a miracle, pray for a miracle. I have in my life witnessed the miraculous intervention of Our Lady and of Saint Francis Xavier.
Our Lady of Good Counsel by Pasquale Sarullo, 19th century.
More than any other pope, Pope Leo XIII (1878- 1903) had a deep love for this devotion. He was born in the town of Carpineto, not far from the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel, and elevated the shrine to the status of a Minor Basilica. In 1903, had a copy of the image installed in the Pauline Chapel of the Vatican Basilica. Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) dedicated his entire pontificate to the Madonna of Good Counsel.
The present church was built in 1628. In World War II, a bomb crashed through the roof, destroying the sanctuary and the high altar. The fragile image of Our Lady of Good Counsel was only a few yards away but was miraculously undamaged.
A Prayer to Mary Most Holy of Good Counsel to Implore Her Protection (1796)
O Mary of Good Counsel, inflame the hearts of all who are devoted to you, so that all of them have shelter in you, O great Mother of God. O most worthy Lady, let everyone choose you as teacher and wise counselor of their souls, since you are, as Saint Augustine says, the counsel of the Apostles and counsel of all peoples. Amen.
(parts of this article were adapted from The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute, Dayton Ohio)