Feast 22 July
Apostle to the apostles. First witness of the Resurrection.
Sacred art
The portrait kept with St. Mary Magdalene is the image this library has of Mary. The honour goes to the person, and through the person to God. It is not a machine, and it is not a substitute for the life written below.
Not the composite sinner of later sermons. The Gospels name her at the cross and at the tomb. The Church raised her feast to an apostolic rank in 2016.
If it belongs to Mary, it is here, with a door back into the story.
Nazareth & Bethlehemc. 1 BC – AD 1
The central Catholic claim: the eternal Son of God took a human nature in the womb of Mary. Every later miracle is a footnote to this one.
Nazarethc. 1 BC
Jesus is conceived in Mary without a human father. The Church holds this as history, not as a metaphor for a spiritually impressive child.
Cana of Galileec. AD 30
Jesus’ first public sign in John’s Gospel: at a village wedding, at Mary’s request, water becomes wine — good wine, and a great deal of it.
Bethanyc. AD 33
Four days in the tomb, already a stench: Jesus calls Lazarus out. It is the last great sign in John before the Passion — and it helps to cause it.
Jerusalemc. AD 33
On the third day Jesus rose from the dead. This is not one Catholic miracle among others. It is the reason there is a Church, a Gospel, or any later sign worth hearing.
Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza)Tradition: 12 January AD 40
Spain’s founding Marian story: the Virgin, while still living in Jerusalem, appears to the Apostle James on the Ebro and leaves a jasper pillar. A small statue of mother and child stands on that column in Zaragoza. A basilica stands around it. It is apostolic legend, loved, not historically proved. The photograph is this statue on this pillar — not any other Madonna.
Esquiline Hill, RomeTradition: 5 August 358
A childless Roman couple vow their fortune to Mary. On a hot August night, snow falls on the Esquiline in the shape of a church. The basilica of St. Mary Major stands there.
Aylesford / Cambridge (the English Carmel)Traditionally 16 July 1251
The tradition: Mary gives St. Simon Stock a brown scapular as a pledge for the Carmelite order and for whoever dies wearing it in faith. History is tangled. The devotion is not. Popes have clothed the Church in it for centuries.
LoretoTradition: arrived 1294
A small stone house, now inside a basilica, claimed to be the house of the Holy Family, carried from Nazareth by angels — or, as later historians prefer, by the princely family of Angeli. Popes have piled privileges on it. Archaeologists argue.
CzęstochowaAt Jasna Góra from 1382; tradition much older
A darkened icon of Mother and Child, slashed on the cheek, which Poland credits with the defense of the monastery in 1655 and with the nation’s soul. Not “not made by hands,” but treated as a wonder-working presence.
Church of St. Alphonsus, RomeCretan icon, 15th c.; in Rome from 1499
A Cretan icon of Mother and Child, the Child’s sandal falling as he sees the instruments of the Passion. Entrusted by Pius IX to the Redemptorists to be made known everywhere.
Tepeyac, Mexico City1531
Mary appears to St. Juan Diego, asks for a church, and leaves her image on his cactus-fiber tilma — an image still visible, and still drawing millions, nearly five centuries later.
6 studied signs on this image
Leżajsk1578
A pious woodcutter, Thomas Michałek, sees Mary in the forest asking for a church. The image of Leżajsk is crowned, the basilica a Bernardine jewel of the Polish baroque, still a working pilgrimage.
Chiquinquirá, BoyacáPainting renewed 26 December 1586
A painting of Our Lady, ruined by damp in a poor chapel, is said to have cleared and shone on 26 December 1586 while a woman prayed. Colombia’s national shrine stands on that hour. The renewal is a local tradition the Church has crowned, not a laboratory of pigment.
Quito1594–1634
Mother Mariana de Jesús Torres, a Conceptionist nun, reports lengthy apparitions of Mary as “Good Success,” with prophecies about a later, corrupted age. A statue still stands in the choir. The diocese has permitted the cult of the image; the prophecies are more contested in popular retellings than in the archives.
Šiluva1608
In a village that had lost its Catholic church to the Reformation, children see a woman holding the Child and weeping. A buried chest of liturgical treasures is found. Lithuania’s great Marian shrine begins.
Rue du Bac, ParisDied 1660
Co-founder of the Daughters of Charity with Vincent. Her body, found well preserved, lies in the chapel of Rue du Bac, across from Catherine Labouré and the chair of the apparitions.
Siena1730 – present
Consecrated Hosts stolen from St. Francis in Siena are recovered from a poor-box, dusty and filthy — and remain intact, without corruption, for centuries. They are still reserved and occasionally tasted for decay.
Rue du Bac, Paris1830
St. Catherine Labouré, a novice of the Daughters of Charity, is shown a medal: Mary crushing the serpent, rays from her hands, a ring of prayer. Struck in 1832, it becomes the most widespread Marian sacramental in the world.
Champion (Robinsonville), Wisconsin1859
The first (and so far only) Marian apparition in the United States approved by a bishop: Adele Brise, a Belgian immigrant, is told to “gather the children” and teach them the faith. A shrine stands where the Peshtigo fire later stopped.
Pellevoisin, Indre1876
Estelle Faguette, dying of tuberculosis, sees Mary fifteen times. She is healed. The lady shows a scapular of the Sacred Heart and asks for mercy to be believed. Rome approved the scapular; the archbishop approved the devotion.
Rue du Bac, ParisDied 1876; found intact 1933
The seer of the Miraculous Medal dies unknown. At her beatification exhumation the body is intact, the eyes still blue. She lies under the altar in the chapel where Mary came.
Gietrzwałd1877
Poland’s only approved Marian apparition of the modern era: two girls, during Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, hear Mary say in Polish that she wishes people to pray the rosary. A spring is blessed. The bishop approved in 1977.
Knock, County Mayo1879
On a wet evening, fifteen villagers see Mary, St. Joseph, St. John the Evangelist, and a Lamb on an altar against the parish gable. No word is spoken. The rain does not touch the vision.
Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Québec1879 and 1888
A poor parish, an old statue, a bridge of ice in March that lets the stone for a new church cross the river — the “Bridge of Rosaries.” In 1888 the statue’s eyes are seen to open. Canada’s national Marian shrine.
Donglü, Hebei1900
During the Boxer Rising, villagers at Donglü see a lady in the sky, and the attackers fall back. A church is built. The image — Mary as a Chinese empress, the Child in her arms — is the face under which Chinese Catholics have prayed through a long century.
Morne-Rouge, Martinique8 May 1902
As Montagne Pelée was about to destroy Saint-Pierre, the parish of Morne-Rouge carried the Blessed Sacrament to the edge of the lava. The flow stopped at the place where the priest blessed it.
Cova da Iria, Fátima1917
In 1917, in a hollow of pasture called the Cova da Iria, near the village of Fátima in Portugal, three shepherd children — Lúcia dos Santos, ten, and her cousins Francisco Marto, nine, and Jacinta Marto, seven — saw a lady brighter than the sun, six times, on the 13th of the month from May to October. She asked for the rosary every day, for the conversion of sinners, for devotion to her Immaculate Heart, and that a chapel be built. On 13 July she showed them hell and spoke of war and of Russia. On 13 October, before a crowd of tens of thousands standing in the rain, including reporters who had come to mock, the sun appeared to dance. Francisco and Jacinta died in the influenza. Lúcia lived until 2005 as a nun. The bishop of Leiria declared the apparitions worthy of belief on 13 October 1930.
Pontevedra, Galicia1925–1926
Sister Lúcia, already a Dorothean novice, sees Mary and the Child in her cell. They ask for the First Saturdays of reparation — confession, communion, rosary, a quarter-hour of company. Fátima’s program gets its weekday.
Beauraing1932–1933
Thirty-three apparitions to five children in a Belgian railway town. Mary asks for a chapel, for prayer, and shows a golden heart. The bishop approves in 1943.
Banneux1933
Eight apparitions to Mariette Beco, 11. Mary leads her to a spring: “This spring is reserved for all nations — to relieve the sick.” She calls herself the Virgin of the Poor.
Amsterdam1945–1959
Ida Peerdeman reported 56 visions and a prayer naming Mary as “Coredemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate.” Amsterdam’s bishop once showed favor; the CDF has repeatedly refused the title and, under the 2024 norms, the apparitions are not recognized as supernatural.
Tre Fontane, Rome1947
A Protestant, anti-Catholic tram driver, Bruno Cornacchiola, takes his children to a grove to prepare a speech against Mary. She comes. He converts. The grotto at the Three Fountains is a Roman pilgrimage with papal visits and a cautious local reception.
Lipa, Batangas1948
A Carmelite postulant, Teresita Castillo, reported apparitions and a rain of rose petals. A 1951 local declaration of “no supernatural origin” was later contested; in 2015 the Archbishop of Lipa declared them authentic, and Rome promptly voided that declaration. The case remains wounded and unfinished.
Syracuse, Sicily29 August – 1 September 1953
A cheap plaster plaque in a worker’s apartment sheds human tears for four days. A commission, scientists, and the bishops of Sicily take depositions. Pius XII spoke of it. A vast basilica now stands over the site.
Ngome, KwaZulu-Natal1955–1971
Sr. Reinolda May, a Benedictine missionary, sees Mary as Tabernacle of the Most High — a Eucharistic title — and is told a shrine will rise at a deserted spring. The bishop of Eshowe has permitted the sanctuary.
Rome City, Indiana / Fostoria, Ohio1956–1959
Sr. Mary Ephrem Neuzil reports a lady calling herself Our Lady of America, asking for purity in the American Church and a statue in the National Shrine. In 2020 the bishops of the relevant dioceses, with the CDF, judged there was no evidence of a supernatural origin.
San Sebastián de Garabandal, Cantabria1961–1965
Four girls report visions of an angel and of Mary, ecstatic walks, a promised great miracle, a warning, and a permanent sign. No Spanish bishop has approved the apparitions. Rome has allowed private devotion without authenticating the events.
Bayside, Queens, then Flushing Meadows1970–1995
Veronica Lueken claimed messages from Mary and Jesus for decades, often accusing the hierarchy of error. The Diocese of Brooklyn declared in 1986 that no credibility should be given to the events.
Akita1973–1981
Sr. Agnes Sasagawa hears a voice from a wooden statue; the statue weeps 101 times; a cross-shaped wound appears on the sister’s hand. Bishop Ito declared the events supernatural in 1984. Rome has been more reserved in later comments.
Betania, near Cúa1976–1990
María Esperanza de Bianchini reports apparitions of Mary as Reconciler of all Peoples and Nations. In 1984 many visitors claim to see Mary. Bishop Pío Bello Ricardo declared the apparitions authentic in 1987.
San Francisco de Cuapa, Chontales1980
A sacristan, Bernardo Martínez, sees Mary by an old tree in a war-torn Nicaragua. She asks for the rosary prayed well, for peace, for the first Saturdays. The bishop of Juigalpa approved the apparitions in 1994.
Kibeho1981–1989 (approved visions)
The only Vatican-approved Marian apparition in Africa. Schoolgirls see Mary and, later, Jesus. They are shown a river of blood — years before the 1994 genocide. The message is conversion, prayer, and the rosary of the Seven Sorrows.
San Nicolás de los Arroyos1983–1990
A housewife, Gladys Quiroga de Motta, reports apparitions and 1,800 messages centered on the rosary, Scripture, and a church to be built. In 2016 the Bishop of San Nicolás declared the apparitions worthy of belief.
Zvir mountain, Litmanová1990–1995
Two girls, Katka and Ivetka, report Mary on a mountain in the newly free Slovakia. A spring, crowds, a call to prayer. The bishop has allowed the pilgrimage and has not issued a final decree on the origin.
Pantano, Civitavecchia2 February 1995
On 2 February 1995, at about 16:20, in a garden at Pantano on the edge of Civitavecchia, a five-year-old girl named Jessica Gregori stopped in front of a plaster statue forty-two centimetres high and called to her father. Blood, she said, was coming from its eyes. Over the next six weeks the same object was reported to weep fourteen times — in the garden, in the house, and at last in a bishop’s hands. A CAT scan at the Gemelli hospital found no device inside the plaster. Two forensic professors named the first stains as human blood, male. John Paul II later blessed a gold crown and a rosary for the figure. Rome has never declared a miracle. The statue is still in a glass case at Sant’Agostino.
Chirattakonam, Kerala2001
During adoration in a Syro-Malankara parish, three red stains form on the Host, later seen as a male face. The bishop had the Host photographed and reserved.
