On the evening of Sunday 18 September, Domenico Di Martino, a 24-year-old handicapped young man from Ispica, a devotee of S. Maria Maggiore, brought his new camera to the church to film the procession of Our Lady of Sorrows. But this cannot take place because a storm is raging. The parish priest Paolo Mansueto then sets up the procession along the central nave. With a moving hand, as a beginner can have when trying to become familiar with the new medium, Domenico maneuvers the camera and notices, by zooming in, that the statue closes its large eyes and then reopens them. He rubs his eyes himself believing in an optical illusion, tries again and sees the same phenomenon again. He doesn't know that shortly before, about ten parishioners called Don Mansueto's attention to point out that the Madonna had closed her eyes.
Then Domenico tells the parish priest that you can see everything in the camera. And Don Mansueto thus verifies that the eyelids of the statue have really lowered and raised again. Don Mansueto delivers the video to a photographer the same evening and confirms that it has not been manipulated. The faithful then feel authorized to cry out about the miracle and remember... that on the evening of the previous Sunday some parishioners had noticed how the Madonna's appearance had something unusual. Fr Mansueto now says: “It was the day of the Addolorata feast, restored only a few years ago [by the will of the parish priest himself and the Addolorata association] in Ispica. This may have influenced my parishioners who wanted it so much. But I too noticed that Our Lady had an expression, how can I say, humanized.”
Subsequently, expert photographic and television technicians from Rome carefully examined the footage and were unable to give a valid technical explanation of the phenomenon.
In our opinion, the event, despite the due traditional prudence of the ecclesiastical authorities, according to the warning of the Apostle Paul, who says not to despise the prophecies but to examine them and accept what is true and good, can well be seen as " sign” of the presence of the Mother of God, of her satisfaction with the devotion towards her of the faithful and of her desire to attract everyone to herself and through her to her Son Jesus Christ. On the other hand, several times, in different times and places, other statues of the Madonna have come to life: thus in 1971 in Eisenberg in Austria and more recently in 1988, in Ardee in Ireland, a statue of the Virgin moved its hands and opened and closed my eyes.
The AntennaSicilia video was broadcast in Mexico and the journalist Daniel Muñoz in the video talks about the interview given to the mother of an autistic child who witnessed the phenomenon and who has since improved a lot, the child says that the Madonna told him that she opens and closes her eyes so as not to look at the horrors of the sins of men in the world.
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catholic