Sightings - Loreto, Italy

The following series of slide shows were sent to us with descriptions written by Henry Bludau

. These were taken on his pilgrimages to Ars

, La Salette

, Loreto

, Lyon

, Mugnano

, Paris

and Rome

Loreto, Italy

Loreto is where Pauline Jaricot stopped on pilgrimage while on her heroic journey through Italy to get cured by St. Philomena at her shrine in Mugnano. Although it is on the eastern shore of Italy, within sight of the Adriatic Sea, it is actually a straight shot directly south to get to Rome from Loreto, so she did not go very far out of her way to get there in her dire condition. Here she visited the actual Holy House of Nazareth, inside a fortress-like basilica. Having said to have been transported overnight four times by angel hands -- once from Nazareth to Tersatto in modern Croatia; then to a woods nearby; then a neighboring hill; and finally to its present location -- over the space of a year and a half years, chemists have confirmed that not only the stones, but the mortar itself, link it to the neighborhood of Nazareth, and not Loreto. The style of stonework is 1st century Nabatean. There are no traces of any numbering on the stones indicating that it had ever been reassembled, and excavations beneath its walls have confirmed original accounts that it stands intact without a foundation, half of it on an old roman-Medieval road, the other half in an adjacent field, and straddling an ancient ditch. Expeditions sent out early on showed that the measurements of its three walls match exactly the empty foundation left behind in Nazareth at the end of the Crusades when the Muslim forces were going about destroying all the Christian shrines that fell into their hands. The fourth side of the foundation left behind in Nazareth is what backs up to the grotto pilgrims see there today.

At Loreto, there is still today an oval framed portrait of St. Philomena on the narrow left wall of a side altar, the side altar itself being perhaps the second one on the right as one enters through the main doors of the basilica. While its existence is mentioned in some books about St. Philomena, it hangs totally unidentifiable, unless one happens to be intentionally searching for it. The imperial crown lies untouched to her right, she holds in her arms the arrows and palm branch, and is followed by a train of virgin martyrs. One could either photograph it standing right under it, or try by standing on the other side of the altar in the middle. Either way, it was hard to get a good shot with proper lighting.