VISIONS AND MIRACLES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 9 November 1925, Page 10

VISIONS AND MIRACLES.

INFANTILE PARALYSIS CASE. A STRICKEN BOY WALKS. _ A great sensation has been caused by" the miraclulous cure of a sick child, which is reported from Aulla, a little Spanish township of Magra near Spezia. At Potenzana, near Aulla. is a 1 popular local shrine, . dedicated to the “Madonna della Neve” the \ irgin of the Snow”—to which thei follownig legend is attached. One winter’s day, in. the year (00, a woodman wa s cutting down trees m the thick forests that then coveredtheiil. As he was plying ,Ins axe m the trunk of a- chestnut tree he heard a voice say, “Stop, stop, you are hurting me. At the same moment the figure. ' ° f , Virgin appeared to issue from the tree, rose up to Heaven, and vanished. Every year, on August 5, pilgrimages are made to Potenzana, and the sick and paralytic are carried there by their friends, as many cures are said to have been effected through the intercession of the Madonna delta Neve This year a peasant father ana mother brought their youngest child a boy of six, who had been totally deprived of the use of his legs by an apparently incurable form of infantile paralysis. At the conclusion of the service, Savino struggled down from his mother’s arms, put his feet to the ground and began to wmk. His recovery was so complete that he walked the whole distance home, a. matter of over two miles, without any effort. . The Aulla doctor, who had bee'ni attending the lad admits that, although he does not believe in miracles, he can give- no scientific explanation yff the cure. The child is bright and intelligent, and it is possible that he may have been influenced by suggestion. For days before the festa his parents ’had been tel 1 ing him that he was going to see the Madonna, who would make him well. There is great excitement over, the vision of the Virgin and Child said to have been seen by some schoolgirls at the Hungarian village of Szakacsi. The community has formed itself into two groups, one declaring that they saw the apparation, and the other insisting that the vision of the schoolgirls Was an illusion. To the former group belongs a farmer’ named Kovor, who offers a .large part of his harvest for the purpose of erecting a cliapel on the spot where the miracle is said to have occurred.

The villagers have already put up a tent and altar._ Thousands of pilgrims from neighbouring places flock to Szakacsi, and some claim to have, seen also Saint Joseph and Saint Michael of Padua.. The report is circulated of the miraculous healing of a hoy on crutches. Kovor declares that he watched the apparation on June 21 for five hours. The Virgin wore dresses of silk and laces, and in her hands, stars were shining. Finallv she floated away over a neighbour’s stable. One Sunday, he says, he saw the Saviour on the Cross :n the same place. So great is the attraction of the spot that the clergy have difficulty in getting the people to come to church again.