Syracuse: The Mysterious Language of Her Tears
It all took place on Saturday, August 29th, at the octave day of the festival of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in Syracuse, Sicily, in the district of the suburb St Lucia, the poorest one in the city. Sanctified early on by the martyrdom of Saint Lucia, this district had been a cradle of Christianity, but now was it for the most part a communist district. The Gardens of Saint Georges Street was among the humblest of this populous neighborhood and, at number 11, there used to be a very simple home, inhabited by poor people: a young, hard-working couple, the Giusto-Iannuso. The couple had a plaster statue of the Virgin Mary in their modest bedroom, given to them as a wedding gift by a relation some months before. The statue depicted Virgin Mary showing her Heart, not transpierced by a sword of pains, according to traditional iconography, but surrounded by thorns with flames rising up from it, as in Our Lady's apparition at Fatima on June 13, 1917. That morning, Antonina, the young wife, who had been suffered terribly from a difficult pregnancy for several months, was still in bed. She was to be the first to see the astonishing miracle, followed by her sister-in-law, Grazia Iannuso, who said: "I saw the Madonna cry, she truly cried, tears just poured from her eyes." Neighbors, and soon a small crowd, noted the marvelous phenomenon. On that morning of Saturday, August 29th, the statue of the Blessed Virgin "cried" six or seven times, and shed tears again in the evening, shortly after Angelo, the husband, had returned. Later, he witnessed: "Then, I knelt down and I prayed."
On both Sunday, the 30th and Monday the 31st of August, the same wonder was noted by thousands of witnesses. The statue did not cry nonstop, but rather at certain intervals, and not only in the bedroom but also when set outside on a wall in the courtyard, or on the makeshift altar, across the street where the statue was exhibited. On Tuesday, September 1st, at 11 AM, a commission of experts named by the Archiepiscopal Curia was sent to the Gardens of Saint Georges Street. It was made up of several doctors, an engineer, and a priest named Fr. Bruno. A report was later written up under oath. As soon as the expertise was finished, the lacrymation ended. One week later the city of Syracuse celebrated the Nativity of Our Lady, patroness of the Cathedral and the city, while in Rome Pope Pius XII was publishing the Encyclical "Fulgens Corona" announcing the Marian Year, which was to commemorate the centenary of the definition of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. After the miraculous lacrymations, extraordinary cures were produced. On Wednesday, September 2nd, the Archbishop of Syracuse, Mgr Baranzini, returned on the spot to interrogate several eye-witnesses. On September 9th, the consulted laboratory published the detailed report of the analyses carried out on the liquid emanating from the plaster statuette: this liquid was in every way very similar to human tears. On September 19th, Mgr Baranzini transferred the Madonnina to a square close by and installed the statue in a niche. During the months of September and October more than a million pilgrims came to pray near the little statue.
As early as December 12th, a little more than three months after the event, the Sicilian Episcopate, gathered together around the Cardinal Ruffini, was able to emit a judgment in an official press release. The cardinal exposed the decision on a radio broadcast message: "We saw the Madonna shedding tears over a 4-day period, on August 29th, 30th, and 31st, and on September 1st. The statue "cried" so profusely that those tears impregnated many cotton balls, which became the object of scientific appraisal. The bishops of Sicily, after scrupulously examining the many depositions under oath of witnesses above any suspicion and taking act of the positive tests of the diligent chemical analyses to which the inexplicable tears were subjected, emitted with unanimity the judgment that one cannot question the reality of the facts. Consequently, these men expressed the wish that such a merciful demonstration of our Heavenly Mother may cause the entire population to do salutary penance and to have a stronger devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, by building a Marian shrine without delaying, so as to perpetuate the memory of the wonder."
"No, the Madonna is not shedding tears of joy. They are tears of affliction and sadness. They are a warning to me, to my clergy, to you all, the faithful, so that we become better people, and that we take the good path of our individual, family and social duties again." Mgr Baranzini "Everyone wonders why the Most Blessed Virgin cried in such a manner for 4 long days (...) If we remember the apparitions in Lourdes and Fatima, the answer is simple. (...) Our Lady cried here in Sicily, in Syracuse, because her tears would not flow in vain; because here, a multitude of hearts would endeavor to comfort her and have others console her." Cardinal Ruffini "Can mankind understand the mysterious language of these tears?" Pope Pie XII
According to Br. Michael of the Holy Trinity, The Whole Truth on Fatima, 1986 Dr. Ottavio Musumeci, The Madonna Cried in Syracuse, Ed. Salvator, 1956
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death. Amen.
