Introduction - It All Started Here

IntroductIon

On August 15, 1993, in a letter sent on the occasion of the seventh centenary of the Shrine of the Holy House of Loreto, Pope John Paul II called it “the first international sanctuary dedicated to the Virgin and, for several centuries, the true Marian heart of Christianity.”

In fact, Loreto is a temple unlike many others. And not only because it has long been the most important center of Marian devotion in Italy and Europe, but above all for the precious relic it houses, and for how it arrived in the Marche region of Italy.

As Saint Bernard mentioned in a splendid homily, the Holy House of Loreto is the place where the Redemption of humanity began.1 It is the very humble cell in which the most important event of history took place: the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the consequent Incarnation of the Divine Word. Among

1 You have heard, Virgin, that you will conceive and give birth to a son; you have heard that this will not happen by the work of man but by that of the Holy Spirit.

The angel awaits your answer; he must take it back to God who sent him. We too, O Lady, are waiting for a word of compassion, we miserably oppressed by a sentence of damnation. Behold the price of our salvation is offered to you: if you consent, we will be immediately freed. We were all created by the eternal

Word of God but are now subject to death: By your short answer, must we be renewed and brought back to life. O pious Virgin, Adam, exiled from heaven with his miserable descent, begs this of you in tears; Abraham and David, the holy patriarchs, your ancestors also living in the shadowy region of death, urgently plead with you to accept. The whole world awaits prostrated at your knees: From your mouth depends the consolation of the poor, the redemption of prisoners, the liberation of the condemned, the salvation of all the children of Adam, of all mankind” (Cf. Omelie sulla Madonna of Saint Bernard, Abbot,

Hom. 4, 8-9; Opera omnia, ed. Cisterc. 4, 1966, 53-54). (Our translation.)

the walls that were once in Nazareth, a remote and miserable village in northern Palestine, God became a man to save humanity from sin; the Eternal came into time to restore the universe wounded by the original guilt. It all happened thanks to the cooperation of a woman who, with her “Yes,” her “Fiat,” changed the course of events forever by contributing in her own and very special way, as Co-Redemptrix, to the redemption of the world.

That poor dwelling, in which the immaculate conception and birth of Mary Most Holy took place, belonged to her parents, Saints Joachim and Anna. The Ever-Virgin and her spouse Saint Joseph chose it as their common home precisely because of the sanctity that it emanated and because the Incarnation took place there. The Holy Family lived and grew in that house, and Jesus was raised and worked there until the beginning of his public life.

Daily, and for many years, the walls which are now in Loreto saw the holy faces of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, listened to their voices, breaths and prayers, were touched by their hands, and remained impregnated with holiness and divinity so much as to convey, already on this earth, a foretaste of Paradise. Saint Joseph died among those walls, in the arms of his Son and his most holy spouse. In that house, the Apostles celebrated the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, where Christ became present again in the Eucharist just as years before, in the same place, he had become a man in the womb of his most holy Mother, after the announcement by the archangel Gabriel.

Italy has the extraordinary grace of hosting this hallowed relic on its territory, which according to the tradition of the Church and the endorsement of countless historical, archaeological, and scientific studies, was miraculously “translated” into the grounds of Loreto through the “ministry of the angels.”

Such a portentous event deserves to be known or rediscovered. People often take for granted or fail to appreciate what they have at hand. Yet, we must never forget that nothing is due to us: the gift of the Holy House must be made to bear fruit and be used to help everyone move towards the path of holiness.

The first step to take is to know in order to better love. To know, we must draw only on certain, safe, and perfectly documented facts, events, and data. That is exactly what this work strives to do.