Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

The dry stick that sprouted new leaves by the fountain

Farroupilha (Brazil) (1432 / 1879-1921)

The story begins in Italy. According to Catholic tradition, on May 26, 1432, around five in the afternoon, while a peasant woman named Joaneta (Giannetta) de' Vacchi was gathering grass in a meadow in Caravaggio, Lombardy, a lady appeared to her "like a queen, full of kindness." It was the Virgin Mary, who came to announce peace and ask for penance, fasting on Fridays, and prayer in church on Saturday afternoons, as well as the construction of a chapel. At her feet sprang a spring of water that remains to this day in the Italian sanctuary of Santa Maria del Fonte, and healings are attributed to this water.

Among the most beloved anecdotes is that of the staff that sprouts leaves. Tradition tells that, to test the purity of the spring's water, a dry staff was placed in it; upon touching the water, the staff sprouted leaves and flowers. The sanctuary itself refers to it with a cautious "it is said that..." ("it is said that..."), thus acknowledging its status as a pious tradition, not a historical account. In remembrance of that sign, Caravaggio's iconography of Nossa Senhora frequently depicts a flowering bouquet between the Virgin and Joaneta: this detail is indeed fully verifiable in official texts and images.

The devotion crossed the ocean with the emigrants. In 1879, Italian immigrants Antônio Franceschet and Pasqual Pasa built a small oratory in Caravaggio, now Farroupilha, in the Serra Gaúcha region of Rio Grande do Sul. In 1890, a masonry church was inaugurated; on May 26, 1921, the church was officially elevated to a Sanctuary; and in 1959, the Holy See declared Our Lady of Caravaggio patroness of the Diocese of Caxias do Sul. These facts are recorded on the sanctuary's official website and are documented history; however, the biographical details of Joaneta, her dialogue with the Virgin, and the specific healings attributed to the water are a consolidated devotional tradition, not a contemporary canonical process.

Today it is the largest Brazilian shrine dedicated to this Marian devotion and one of the main pilgrimage centers in the south of the country; May 26th is a liturgical feast day and a civil holiday, with a massive pilgrimage of the descendants of those immigrants, who come with votive offerings. It should be noted that Caravaggio's message does not state that the Virgin Mary requested the recitation of the Rosary: penance, fasting, and Saturday prayer are mentioned. The Rosary is prayed there as part of the ordinary Marian spirituality of pilgrimages, not as a specific mandate of this apparition.