Our Lady of Loreto

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Loreto, or the miraculous translation of the Holy House of Our lady from the Holy Land to Italy.  People don't believe it happened though.  I do, and several saints and popes did too.  I'm not bragging - indeed I lost that grace long ago - but while I was in Loreto, I stayed in the Holy House for hours, and outside it, for hours, every day - with no concept of the passage of time until one day a Capuchin priest grabbed me by the hair, shook my head, and said in Italian, "God has grasped you!"  I left the shrine shortly after, and the next day I returned to Assisi, never to return to that little paradise.  But I knew the house was the House of the Virgin, the Gate of Heaven, the House of God.  I knew it.
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My brother died on this date.  One day he confided to me, just before his illness was diagnosed terminal, that Our Lady had recently appeared to him in a "flash of a second" - while he was trying to exercise.  I asked what she looked like and he described how Our Lady is depicted upon the Miraculous Medal - the Immaculate Conception.
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"Did she say anything?"  I asked.
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"No, she just smiled."
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"What did you think?"  I inquired further.
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"I don't know.  I felt good... I felt at peace...  I felt as if everything was going to be okay," he stammered, asking, "do you think it was her?"
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"Yeah.  Skip.  I really do.  She does that - that's just how she does it sometimes, and you know it's her."  I assured him.
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My brother made his confession and received the sacraments shortly before he died on the feast of Loreto, 1990.
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O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee and for those who do not have recourse to thee, especially the enemies of the Church and those recommended to thee.
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Anyway - I'll be offline today.  This stuff is all passing you know... it...  never mind.
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