The interior of the Holy House of Mary, Mother of God, as it is today in Loreto, Italy.
Posted on 12/08/2018 7:17:28 AM PST by NYer
How did the Holy House take off from its foundations and reappear intact about 2,000 miles away, where it remains to this day?
At a conference organized by the “Amici del Timone” Cultural Center in Staggia Senese, Italy, titled “The Story of the Incredible Move of the House of Mary of Nazareth to Loreto,” a topic was developed which challenges engineering.
Indeed, the Holy House, birthplace of Our Lady and where the Archangel Gabriel announced to her the Incarnation, has been for many centuries in the town of Loreto (Santa Casa di Loreto), in the Marche region of Italy, facing the Adriatic Sea.
However, the Annunciation took place in Nazareth, in the Holy Land, where the foundations of the Holy House remain to this day. When compared with the dimensions and characteristics of the Loreto House, they match perfectly; but the similarities and concordances do not end there.
How did the Holy House take off, so to speak, from its foundations and reappear about 2,000 miles away, where it remains intact to this day?
According to historical evidence, the move took place in the thirteenth century; but how could it have been done given the poor technological resources of the time?
The move is attributed to an angelic action officially recognized by Popes and sustained by saints. However, such authoritative approvals are not intended to explain the material procedure, which carried an object the size of a house from one continent to another practically overnight.
This transfer, however, was confirmed by historical, documentary and archaeological evidence. Once again, for the astonishment of many, science confirms the Church.
Prof. Giorgio Nicolini, who devoted his life of study and research to the case, spoke at this conference. Based on these scientific evidences, he proved indisputably the veracity of the miraculous transfer.
During his lecture, Professor Nicolini demonstrated the existence of many documents and eyewitness accounts of the transfer, which science and human method cannot explain. He also established a chronology of the change of location.
1. On May 9, 1291, the Holy House was still in Nazareth.
2. On the night of May 9 to 10, 1291, it traveled nearly 2,000 miles and reached Tersatto (now Trsat), in the region of Dalmatia, in what is now a suburb of Rijeka, Croatia.
On that occasion, Nicolò Frangipane, feudal lord of Tersatto personally sent a delegation to Nazareth to ascertain whether the Holy House had indeed disappeared from its original place. The emissaries not only verified its disappearance but found the foundation on which the house was built and from which the walls had been taken away as a block. Around these foundations in Nazareth, the Basilica of the Annunciation was built. In Loreto, the Holy House stands firmly, without its foundation, directly on the ground.
3. On the night of December 9 to 10, 1294, the Holy House disappeared from Tersatto and landed “in various places” of Italy. For nine months it stayed on a hillside overlooking the port of Ancona, which thus came to be called “Posatora,” from the Latin “posat et ora” (to set down, or land, and pray).
A church was built on the site as a memorial, as was recorded at the time and signed by a priest “Don Matteo,” probably an eyewitness.
Two tombstones also commemorate this occurrence. One is from the same time period of the event and is written in old Vulgar Latin. The other, from the sixteenth century, is written in vernacular and is a copy of the older.
Posatora’s oldest tombstone already mentioned “Our Lady of Loreto,” making it clear that the inscription was done after the House’s departure from the site.
4. In 1295, after nine months in Posatora, the Holy House moved to a forest that belonged to a woman called Loreta, near the town of Recanati. That is where the name Loreto comes from.
5. Between 1295 and 1296, after spending eight months in this location the Holy House was miraculously transported to a farm on Mount Prodo belonging to two brothers of the Antici family.
6. In 1296, after four months at this farm, the Holy House departed and landed on a public road on Mount Prodo connecting Recanati to Ancona, where it remains to this day.
Countless other elements attest to the historical truth of this inexplicable translation of the Holy House. Three churches were built in Ancona—two still existing—testaments that eyewitnesses saw the “flying” Santa Casa arrive in Ancona and stop in Posatora.
Moreover, in Forio, on Ischia Island, fishermen who traded with Ancona returned narrating the events that had taken place in 1295. Their reports led the city inhabitants to erect a basilica dedicated to “Santa Maria di Loreto.” They also saw the Holy House in Ancona with their own eyes.
Various bishops of the region approved the veneration of the miraculous translations. For centuries the Popes renewed the approvals until Urban VIII, in 1624, definitively established December 10 as the Feast of the Translation of the Holy House of Mary, Mother of God.
Several Popes, including Paul II, Julius II, Leo X, Pius IX, Leo XIII and Pius XI documented their recognition of the translation. These respective documents, beyond their religious aspect in which the Popes recognize the event as supernatural, are recognized as valuable documents by historical science.
Professor Nicolini strongly reprimanded the materialistic mentality, at times agnostic, atheistic or Protestant, which seeks to discredit the authenticity of the Holy House venerated in Loreto.
In a way, this opposition encouraged deeper studies, which ended up proving the Holy House actually came from the Holy Land. Proofs include the chemical composition of the material used to build the house, its shape, and many architectural details.
Some, denying the angelic translation, went so far as to fabricate a story that a fanciful princely family from Epirus named “Angeli” had dismantled the house and transported it brick by brick at the request of the Crusaders facing the destructive advance of Muslims. That “family” then rebuilt the house in Loreto.
Such an operation, with the transportation conditions of the thirteenth century, would have been a more miraculous feat than the angelic translation.
The stones and bricks are kept together with a mortar whose physical and chemical composition is found only in Palestine and precisely in the region of Nazareth. They are nonexistent in the Marche region or anywhere else in Italy.
Moreover, if the house was dismantled and rebuilt in place after place along its journey—as claimed by its fanciful objectors—one cannot understand how it could possibly have maintained the exact geometric proportions of the Nazareth house, whose foundations, to this day, match perfectly the walls of Loreto.
Nor would it have been possible that nobody saw or heard the house being dismantled and later rebuilt, especially in the brief span of one night in the center of the shrine in Nazareth and then again in Croatia and Italy.
Even more inexplicable is the fact that the Holy House finally came to rest across an old dirt highway. On this road, the passage of animals and carriages naturally opened ruts in the center of the roadway, raising the roadsides, and forming ditches on both sides. Thus, the way the house landed, its three walls, with no foundation, are supported partly on ground and partly over open air. Today pilgrims can see this for themselves through a glass floor.
The Recanati City Hall, moreover, had already at that time forbidden the building of houses on public roads and had ordered demolished all buildings found to be in violation of the ordinance. How, then, could someone have rebuilt a house cutting across the road without anyone noticing?
Another great hurdle comes from the lack of means in those days to carry an entire house, even if dismantled brick by brick and stone by stone. It would weigh a few tons. Transport by road would have likely been unfeasible due the delay and the amount of chariots, animals and men it would require. Transportation by sea, while more feasible, would also have been too time-consuming and prone to loss due to storms.
More complicated still would be to cut the walls in segments and take them intact on a 2,000 mile journey and then glue them back together without leaving traces of the joints. These material factors, Prof. Giorgio Nicolini explained, postulate the impossibility of such transportation with the technical means of the time.
From Professor Nicolini’s long and detailed demonstration it is clearly much more reasonable to believe the angelic translation resulting from a wondrous work of God, for Whom nothing is impossible, and Who has worked far greater miracles.
For human hands to have performed such a translation is to consider an event even more miraculous than that done by the work of angels.
I am not sure if they did a good job in catechism or not. I rarely paid any attention. I didn’t care about it, and I just wasn’t interested in it. All I was thinking about, was getting out of school, so I could lace up my skates, grab my stick, and get out on the ice.
Now, I have assurance of salvation 👍 Sorry if you don’t, but I will pray that you will, and I don’t have to be in church, to pray for you. 😁😇😊👍🤣🙃👋😄😂
However, you took it upon yourself to publicly accuse me by dishonestly stating:
You have departed from the faith.
Roman Catholics have taken great liberties with that passage....much of it in error.
The writers of the NT aren't going to say we come to faith only through Christ then to have Rome turn around and add a whole bunch of other contradictory statements.
So yes...it is Roman Catholicism that is contradicting Scripture in so many ways as I noted in the post.
Yes, that's very obvious.
You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
So what's with the statues of Mary and bowing down before them?
Can you not understand what it says or do you not want to understand?
Luke 7:50
EVERY version out there has *saved* or *healed* except the corrupted Douay-Rheims.
Here’s a link to multiple translations and the Greek so you can see for yourself how bad the DRB is.
https://biblehub.com/luke/7-50.htm
Since you’re a former catholic, you should know better that falsely accusing Catholics of bowing before statues of the Blessed Mother.
No, the faith is in Jesus.
Fabric has no power to heal.
Exactly......
Who's accusing?
I'm just stating a fact that can be plainly seen.
“Safe” or “Saved”; it was touching a piece of cloth, in the faith of Jesus Christ, that made her so.
ABJ - Anything but Jesus.
Thank God I didn’t pay attention in catechism class. If I had, I might never have gotten assurance of salvation. Fortunately, I have it now. 👍 Sorry if you don’t. All I wanted to do, was play hockey, not listen to them. Speaking of that, I laced up the blades, and I was on the ice last week, at Shu Mart City, Ecoland, in Matina. I still got it bro, and still can fly around the ice. It was a beautiful thing. Contrary to popular belief, they actually DO have ice skating here. 👍😁🤣😇😊👋🙃😄
And the Lord spoke all these words: I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them: I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me: And shewing mercy unto thousands to them that love me, and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:1-6)The prohibition against graven images and bowing down to them is in the context of the commandment against turning toward false gods, not against all carved images per se. Indeed, God himself commanded that two golden cherubim be placed above the ark, and that a brazen serpent be placed upon a staff. Neither did our Lord object to the carved image of Caesar on the coin that was presented to him. Since Catholics do not see Mary as a god or bow before her statues as as act of worship to a god, there is no violation of the commandment. Try again.
All of a sudden context counts?
Any excuse to disobey the command of God to keep up your traditions is not going to end well for Catholics.
I feel sorry for some of those people. Most have been taught these things from childhood, on pain of damnation. I’ve known many wonderful Catholic people, many of whom, I’m sure, are genuine committed Christians, but I always feel that it’s in spite of some of the unscriptural things they’ve been taught. It’s kind of like with some Mormons -— they genuinely love the Lord, but they really don’t understand what that means, in light of the things they’ve been taught. But Catholics believe in Jesus Christ, and him crucified. That’s the main thing. Everything else is gravy. So, I’m not going to argue with them about it. It just makes people angry, and for everyone who begins to look at Scripture and change their focus, there are many more who just get angry, and won’t search the Scriptures. And that’s the main thing -— they have the Scriptures, just like we do. God will speak to each of us, through His word, if we sincerely search for Him.
But you are contradicting the basic premise of the Protestant Reformation: faith alone. I thought that as long as one had faith in Jesus Christ his salvation was assured even if he did disobey the Commandments? You now hold that obedience to the Commandments is now required? How Catholic of you.
Apparently Roman Catholicism did not think so or they recognized the prohibition as applying to what they do because in their version of the Ten Commandments, they eliminated the second one and split the last one on coveting into two so they could still come up with ten.
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