SAINT MICHAEL SHRINE
ON THE GARGANO
In Apulia, on Monte Gargano, the town of Monte Sant'Angelo contains
the most famous shrine of the Latin West dedicated to the Archangel Saint
Michael. Placed on top of the mountain this singular Basilica made up of
a complex of constructions around the grotto from various eras, gives evidence
of a good fifteen centuries of history. From remote times this is a place
of pardon and prayer, famous in the entire Christian world. An anonymous
writer, who lived more than a thousand years ago, describes it thus:
"The shrine of Saint Michael is known and extolled everywhere not for
the splendour of its marble, but for the prodigious events that took palce
here; of modest form, it is nevertheless, rich in celestial virtue, because
the Archangel Michael himself deigned to set up and consecrate it, who
being mindful of human frailty, came down from heaven so that men could
participate in things divine in that temple".
We hope you will have an interesting and fruitful visit in this holy
place, born through the inscrutable will of Our Lord on the high peak of
the rugged and suggestive Gargano and as if suspended between the sky and
the sea, between the divine and the human.
The origin of the shrine
The origin of the shrine goes back to the end of the 5th and the beginning
of the 6th century. Some old written documents give evidence to this: a
letter sent by Pope Gelasio I in 493 - 494 to Giusto, Bishop of Larino,
another letter from the same Pontiff to Herculentius, Bishop of Potenza,
(492 - 496) and a note dated 29 September reported by the martyrologer
Geronimiano.
But it is the Liber de apparitione sancti Michaelis in Monte Gargano,
which was drafted, in the 8th century, which reconstructs with precision
and evocation the miraculous events, which gave origin to the cult of the
Archangel Michael on the Gargano.
This is connected with the memory of four apparitions that have taken
place in the course of the centuries. They are related with extraordinary
and moving vivacity and they testify to the miraculous events that took
place there.
The first traditionally dated 490 is the most astonishing and is called
the episode of the bull. |
