The blessed
cotton
The miracle of Our Lady’s weeping in Syracuse was filmed, photographed, and even chemically analyzed. Many were able to touch and taste the tears. As the tears streamed down the face of the Madonna the faithful dried them with handkerchiefs, cotton balls or swabs of wool.
Some of the miraculous healings happened immediately after touching the person with a little cotton that had touched the image and the tears. One of the most famous cases, because it is one of the most documented, is the healing from a tumor of Mrs Mariannina Vassallo, who “after having applied a little blessed cotton, noticed a progressive improvement”, until she was perfectly healed. This is one of the “extraordinary healings” that was examined by the medical commission appointed by the Ecclesial authorities immediately after the weeping event of the Madonna. Another is the healing of little Enza Moncada, struck with paralysis of the right arm and leg: “They passed the cotton of the tears of the Little Madonna over my arm and leg. After 10 minutes I began to walk and could hold an iron in my right hand. This is when I remember that, as my mother told me, everyone cried out: It’s a miracle!”
From then on everyone wanted a piece of cotton that touched the image and the tears, to take with them as an act of devotion and faith, but more often to soothe their own ills or those of others.
This spontaneous gesture, of touching the image with a piece of cotton during the days of the lachrymation, was repeated even after the weeping had ceased. In fact, it has become a rite which is repeated periodically and which has been assumed by the local Ecclesial Authorities, having become a traditional element of the event’s history.
Pilgrims to the Shrine search for a “contact” with the miraculous event manifested here. Our Holy Father John Paul II reminds us of this in his homily at the Shrine on November 6, 1994 : “The tears of Mary belong to the order of signs.” Those who return home from the Shrine with this little “relic” often bring them to the sick, who, receiving it with faith, have experienced “extraordinary graces.”
Faith pushes to “contact” and the fruit is above all conversion, and sometimes also physical healing. The Gospel of Mark gives us a touching example of this: “There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years. She had suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet she was not helped but only grew worse. She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured”. Immediately her flow of blood dried up. She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched my clothes?” But his disciples said to him, “You see how the crowd is pressing upon you, and yet you ask, ‘Who touched me?’” And he looked around to see who had done it. The woman, realizing what had happened to her, approached in fear and trembling. She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction”. (Mk. 5:25-34)
It is possible to ask for the blessed cotton for yourself of family members.
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