Bruno Cornacchiola and the beautiful Lady of the three fountains

Da Paolo Tessione - August 17, 2019

THE BEAUTIFUL LADY OF THE THREE FOUNTAINS
History of the Virgin of Revelation

PART ONE

THAT LOST TRAIN

There is always a preparation, something that heralds the visit of Mary most holy in visible form on this earth. Even if this preparation is not perceived all the times immediately, it is found later with the passage of time. He is not always an angel, as happened in Fatima; very often these are events, large or small. It is always something that, like a plow, moves the soil. We think something like this also happened in Rome, before the Madonna presented herself to the children and then to Bruno Cornacchiola himself, at the Tre Fontane. Nothing sensational, but in divine designs the sensational and the normal have the same value. On the contrary, preference goes to what fits best on ordinariness, because the work of God is not magnified or diminished by the extent of the circumstances. Here is one of these circumstances. Rome, March 17, 1947. Shortly after 14 pm, Father Bonaventura Mariani of the Friars Minor is called by the concierge of the Collegio S. Anthony in via Merulana 124. There is a lady who urgently urges him to go to his apartment in via Merulana, because he says that "there is the devil", more concretely, there are some Protestants who are waiting for him. The friar comes down and Mrs. Linda Mancini explains that she had managed to organize a debate with them on religion. In fact, those for some time had been carrying out intense propaganda in his palace, especially by one of them, a certain Bruno Cornacchiola, obtaining the conversion of some roommates who had already decided not to have their children baptized. Embittered by what was happening and unable to keep up with their arguments, Ms. Mancini had turned to the Franciscans of the College S. Antonio. "Come now," said the woman, "otherwise the Protestants will say that you are afraid of fighting with them ..." In truth, it hadn't been done at the last minute. Another Franciscan had already been forewarned, but at the last moment, for personal reasons, he had declined the invitation and suggested that he turn to Father Bonaventura. Naturally he objects that, taken so off guard, he does not feel prepared for that debate and, moreover, he is tired from the lessons held in the morning at the Faculty of Propaganda Fide. But in the face of the lady's heartfelt insistence, she resigns herself to accepting the invitation. Arriving in the debate room, Father Bonaventura finds himself in front of a Protestant pastor of the sect of the "Seventh-day Adventists", surrounded by a small group of the same religion, including Bruno Cornacchiola. After a silent prayer, the debate begins. It is known that usually these encounters immediately become "clashes" and end in an exchange of accusations and counter-accusations, without one party being able to convince the other, given that each one starts from the absolute certainty of being right. Cornacchiola immediately stands out for aggressive interventions, based more on insults than on arguments, like this: «You are artists and astute; designed to deceive the ignorant, but with us who know the Word of God you cannot do anything. You have invented many stupid idolatries and interpret the Bible your way! ». And directly to the friar: "Dear wise guy, you are quick to find the loopholes! ...". And so the debate goes on for almost four hours, until it is decided that it is time to separate. As everyone rises to leave, the ladies present at the debate say to Cornacchiola: "You are not calm! You can see it from the look ». And he in return: "Yes, instead: I have been happy since I left the Catholic Church!". But the ladies insist: "Turn to Our Lady. She will save you! », And show him the rosary. "This will save you! And twenty-one days later Cornacchiola is thinking of the Madonna, but not so much to "turn to her" as to fight it and try to diminish it as much as possible, even looking for the arguments to do it in the same Bible. But who was this Bruno Cornacchiola? And above all what was the story of his life and why had he become so avid against the Madonna? We think it is very useful to know all this to better understand the area and the background on which the message of the apparition is grafted. We know that Our Lady never chooses at random: neither the seer, nor the place, nor the moment. Everything is part of the mosaic of the event. And the same Bruno who tells. We summarize. He was born in 1913 on the Cassia Vecchia, in a stable, due to the great poverty in which his parents find themselves. At his birth the father is in prison in Regina Coeli and when he goes out with his wife he takes the child to baptize in the church of S. Agnes. To the ritual question of the priest: "What name do you want to put him?", The drunken father replies: "Giordano Bruno, like the one you killed in Campo dei Fiori!". The priest's response is predictable: "No, in this spirit it is not possible!" They then agree that the child will only be called Bruno. Parents are illiterate and live in misery. They go to live in a house near the agglomeration of shacks where all those who came out of prisons and street women met. Bruno grows in this "foam of Rome", without religion, because God, Christ, Our Lady were known only as blasphemies and the children grew up thinking that these names indicated pigs, dogs or donkeys. In the Cornacchiola house life was full of quarrels, beatings and blasphemies. The older children, in order to sleep at night, left the house. Bruno went to sleep on the stairs of the Basilica of S. John in Lateran. One morning, when he was fourteen, he is approached by a lady who, after inviting him to enter the church, talks to him about mass, communion, confirmation, and promises him pizza. The boy looks at her startled. To the lady's questions, in amazement, she replies: «Well, at home, when Dad is not drunk, we all eat together, sometimes pasta, sometimes soup, broth, risotto or soup, but this confirmation and communion, Mom has she ever cooked ... And then, what is this Ave Maria? What is this our Father? » And so, Bruno, barefoot, badly dressed, full of lice, cold, is accompanied by a friar who will try to teach him some catechism. After forty days the usual lady takes him to an institute of nuns where Bruno receives communion for the first time. Godfather needed confirmation: the bishop calls his servant and makes him godfather. As a reminder, they are given the black booklet of the Eternal Maxims and a beautiful rosary crown, also large and black. Bruno returns home with these objects and with the task of asking mother for forgiveness for the stones that she had thrown and a bite in her hand: "Mama, the priest told me at confirmation and communion that I had to ask you for forgiveness ...". «But what confirmation and communion, what forgiveness!», And saying these words she gives him a push, making him fall down the stairs. Bruno then throws the booklet and the rosary crown to his mother and leaves home in Rieti. Here he stays for a year and a half with his uncle, doing all the jobs they offered him. Then his uncle takes him back to his parents who in the meantime had moved to Quadraro. Two years later, Bruno receives the precept postcard for military service. He is now twenty years old, he is without education, without work and to present himself in the barracks he gets a pair of shoes in the garbage dumps. To tie a wire. He is sent to Ravenna. He had never had so much to eat and dress as a military man, and he was working hard to make his way, agreeing to do everything he was asked for and participating in all the races. He excels above all in the "shooting gallery", for which he is sent to Rome for a national competition: he wins the silver medal. At the end of military service in 1936, Bruno married a girl he had already known when she was still a child. Conflict for the wedding: he wants to marry only civilly. In fact, he had become a communist and did not want to have anything to do with the Church. Instead she wanted to celebrate the religious wedding. They come to a compromise: "Okay, it means that we ask the parish priest if he wants to marry us in the sacristy, but he must not ask me for confession, communion or mass." This is the condition posed by Bruno. And so it happens. After the wedding they load their few things in a wheelbarrow and go to live in a shack. Bruno is now determined to change his life. He establishes relationships with fellow Communists of the Action Party who persuade him to join as a voluntary radiotelegraphist at the WHO, an abbreviation used to indicate the Military Operation in Spain. We are in 1936. He was accepted and in December he left for Spain where the civil war raged. Of course, Italian troops took sides with Franco and his allies. Bruno, a communist infiltrator, received from the party the task of sabotaging engines and other material supplied to Italian troops. In Zaragoza he is intrigued by a German who always had a book under his arm. In Spanish he asks him: "Why do you always carry this book under your arm?" "But it's not a book, it's Holy Scripture, it's the Bible," was the reply. Thus, in conversation, the two arrive near the square in front of the sanctuary of the Virgin of Pilar. Bruno invites the German to come with him. He energetically refuses: «Look, I never went to that synagogue in Satan. I am not a Catholic. In Rome there is our enemy ». "The enemy in Rome?" Bruno asks curiously. "And tell me who he is, so if I meet him, I'll kill him." "It is the pope who is in Rome." They broke up, but in Bruno, who was already averse to the Catholic Church, hatred against it and against everything that concerned it had increased. So, in 1938, while in Toledo, he buys a dagger and on the blade he engraves: "To death the Pope!". In 1939, after the war ended, Bruno returned to Rome and found work as a cleaning man at ATAC, the company that manages the public transport of Rome. Later, after a competition, he becomes a ticket agent. His meeting dates back to this period, first with the Protestants "Baptists", and then with the "Seventh-day Adventists". These educate him well and Bruno is made director of the Adventist missionary youth of Rome and Lazio. But Bruno also continues to work with the comrades of the Action Party and later in the clandestine struggle against the Germans during the occupation. He also works to save the hunted Jews. Political and religious freedom begins with the arrival of the Americans. Bruno stands out for his commitment and fervor against the Church, the Virgin, the pope. He never misses an opportunity to do all possible spite to the priests, making them fall on public transport and stealing their purse. On April 12, 1947, as director of missionary youth, from his sect he was given the task of preparing to speak in Piazza della Croce Croce. The theme is his choice, as long as it is against the Church, the Eucharist, Our Lady and obviously against the Pope. For this very demanding speech to be held in a public place it was necessary to prepare well, so a quiet place was needed and his home was the least suitable place. Then Bruno proposes to his wife: «Let's all go to Ostia and there we can rest easy; I prepare the speech for the feast of the Red Cross and you will have fun. " But his wife is not feeling well: "No, I can't come ... Bring us the children." It is a Saturday that April 12, 1947. They have lunch quickly and at around 14 p.m. Bruno leaves with his three children: Isola, eleven years old, Carlo seven and Gianfranco four. They reach the Ostiense station: at that moment the train was leaving for Ostia. The disappointment is great. Waiting for the next train means losing precious time and the days are not yet long. «Well, patience», Bruno tries to remedy to overcome his and the children 's moment of despair, «the train went away. I promised you to go to Ostia ... It will mean that now ... we will go to another place. We take the tram, we go to S. Paolo and there we take the 223 to go outside Rome ». In fact, they could not wait for another train, because in those days, having been bombed the line, there was only one train that shuttled between Rome and Ostia. Which meant having to wait more than an hour… Before leaving the station, Bruno bought a newspaper for the children: it was the Pupazzetto. When they arrive near the Tre Fontane, Bruno says to the children: "We go down here because there are trees here too and we go to where there are Trappist fathers who give chocolate". "Yes, yes," exclaims Carlo, "then let's go eat chocolate!" "Well to me 'a sottoata", repeats the little Gianfranco, who for his age still splits the words. So the children run happily along the avenue leading to the Abbey of the Trappist fathers. Once they reach the ancient medieval arch, called Charlemagne, they stop in front of the shop where religious books, historical guides, crowns, images, medals are sold ... and above all the excellent "Chocolate of Rome", produced by the Trappist fathers of the Frattocchie and the eucalyptus liqueur distilled in the same abbey of the Tre Fontane. Bruno buys three small chocolate bars for the little ones, who generously keep a piece of it, wrapped in aluminum foil, for the mother who stayed at home. After which the four continue their journey on a steep path that leads them to the eucalyptus grove that stands right in front of the monastery. Papa Bruno was not new to that place. He had frequented it as a boy when, half a vagabond and half abandoned by his own, he sometimes took refuge there to spend the night in some cave dug in the pozzolan of that volcanic soil. They stop at the first pretty clearing they meet, a hundred meters from the road. "How beautiful it is here!" Exclaimed the children, who live in a basement. They brought the ball with which they should have played on Ostia beach. It's fine here too. There is also a small cave and the children try to get inside immediately, but dad forbids them vigorously. In fact, from what he had seen on the ground he immediately realized that that ravine had also become a meeting place for the allied troops ... Bruno hands the ball to the children to play while he sits on a boulder with the Bible, that famous Bible on to whom he wrote in his own hand: "This will be the death of the Catholic Church, with the pope in the lead!". He also brought a notebook and pencil to take notes with the Bible. He begins the search for the verses that seem most appropriate to him to refute the dogmas of the Church, especially the Marian ones of the Immaculate Conception, of the Assumption and of Divine Motherhood. As he begins to write, the children out of breath arrive: "Dad, we lost the ball." "Where did you get it?" "Inside the bushes." "Go find her!" The children come and go: "Dad, here's the ball, we found it." Then Bruno, expecting to be interrupted continuously in his search, says to his children: "Well, listen, I am teaching you a game, but you don't disturb me anymore, because I have to prepare this speech". So saying, he takes the ball and pulls it in the direction of Isola who had his shoulders turned towards the escarpment from where they had risen. But the ball, instead of reaching Isola, as if it had a pair of wings, flies over the trees and goes down to the road where the bus passes. "I lost it this time," says Dad; "Go find it." All three children go down in search. Bruno also resumes his "research", with passion and bitterness. Of a violent nature, inclined to controversy because quarrelsome by nature and thus shaped by the events of his youth, he had poured these attitudes into the activity of his sect, trying to procure the greatest number of proselytes for his "new faith". Lover of the disquisitions, of an easy enough word, self-taught, he did not cease to preach, to refute and to convince, hurling himself with particular ferocity against the Church of Rome, against the Madonna and the Pope, to the point that he managed to attract his sect not few of his fellow travelers. Because of his meticulous seriousness, Bruno always prepared himself before any public speech. Hence also its success. In the morning of that day he had regularly attended the "Adventist" cult in the Protestant temple, where he was one of the most assiduous faithful. At the Saturday reading-comment, he had particularly charged to attack the "Great Babylon", as the Church of Rome was called which, according to them, dared to teach big mistakes and absurdities about Mary, considering her Immaculate, always Virgin and even Mother of God .

THE BEAUTIFUL LADY!

Sitting in the shade of an eucalyptus, Bruno tries to concentrate, but he doesn't have time to write down a few notes that the children return to the office: "Daddy, daddy, we can't find the ball that was lost, because there are many thorns and we are barefoot and we hurt ourselves ... ». «But you are not good for anything! I'll go, »says Dad a little annoyed. But not before using a precautionary measure. In fact, he makes little Gianfranco sit on top of the pile of clothes and shoes that the children had taken off because it was very hot that day. And to make him feel comfortable, he puts the magazine in his hands to look at the figures. Meanwhile, Isola, instead of helping Dad to find the ball, wants to go over the cave to collect some flowers for Mum. "Okay, be careful, however, to Gianfranco who is small and could get hurt, and not make him go near the cave." "Okay, I'll take care of it," reassures him. Papa Bruno takes Carlo with him and the two go down the slope, but the ball is not found. To make sure that little Gianfranco is always in his place, his dad occasionally calls him and after getting an answer, he goes further and further down the slope. This is repeated three or four times. But when, after calling him, he gets no answer, worried, Bruno rushes back up the slope with Carlo. He calls again, in a louder and louder voice: "Gianfranco, Gianfranco, where are you?", But the boy no longer answers and is no longer in the place where he left him. More and more worried, he looks for him in the bushes and rocks, until his eye runs off towards a cave and sees the little boy kneeling on the edge. "Island, get down!" Shouts Bruno. Meanwhile, he approaches the cave: the child is not only kneeling but also holds his hands as if in an attitude of prayer and looks inward, all smiling ... He seems to whisper something ... He gets closer to the little one and distinctly hears these words: « Beautiful Lady! ... Beautiful Lady! ... Beautiful Lady! ... ». "He repeated these words like a prayer, a song, a praise," recalls the father verbatim. "What are you saying, Gianfranco?" Bruno shouts at him, "what's wrong? ... what do you see? ..." But the child, attracted by something strange, does not respond, does not shake himself, remains in that attitude and with an enchanting smile always repeats the same words. Isola arrives with a bouquet of flowers in his hand: "What do you want, Daddy?" Bruno, between the angry, the amazed and the frightened, thinks that it is a game of children, since no one in the house had taught the child to pray, having not even been baptized. So he asks Isola: "But did you teach him this game of the" Beautiful Lady "?". «No, dad, I don't know him 'I'm playing, I never played with Gianfranco». "And how come you say," Beautiful Lady "?" "I don't know, Dad: maybe someone has entered the cave." So saying, Isola pushes aside the broom flowers that hung over the entrance, looks inside, then turns: "Dad, there's nobody!", And starts to leave, when she suddenly stops, the flowers fall from her hands and she too kneels with her hands clasped, next to her little brother. He looks towards the interior of the cave and as he murmurs kidnapped: "Beautiful Lady! ... Beautiful Lady! ...". Papa Bruno, angry and bewildered more than ever, cannot explain the curious and strange way of doing the two, who on their knees, enchanted, look towards the inside of the cave, always repeating the same words. He begins to suspect that they are making fun of him. Then call Carlo who was still looking for the ball: «Carlo, come here. What are Isola and Gianfranco doing? ... But what is this game? ... Did you agree? ... Listen, Carlo, it's late, I have to prepare for tomorrow's speech, go ahead and play, as long as you don't go into that cave…". Carlo looks at Dad astonished and shouts at him: "Dad, I'm not playing, I can't do it! ...", and he starts to leave too, when he stops abruptly, turns to the cave, joins his two hands and kneels near Isola. He too fixes a point inside the cave and, fascinated, repeats the same words as the other two ... Dad then can't take it anymore and shouts: «And no, huh? ... This is too much, you don't make fun of me. Enough, get up! » But nothing happens. None of the three listen to him, nobody gets up. Then he approaches Carlo and: "Carlo, get up!" But that does not move and continues to repeat: "Beautiful Lady! ...". Then, with one of the usual outbursts of anger, Bruno takes the boy by the shoulders and tries to move him, to put him back on his feet, but he can't. "It was like lead, as if it weighed tons." And here the anger begins to give way to fear. We try again, but with the same result. Anxiously, he approaches the little girl: "Isola, get up, and don't act like Carlo!" But Isola doesn't even answer. Then he tries to move her, but he can't do it with her either ... He looks with terror at the ecstatic faces of the children, their eyes wide and shining and makes the last attempt with the youngest, thinking: "I can raise this". But he too weighs like marble, "like a stone column stuck on the ground", and he can't lift it. Then he exclaims: "But what happens here? ... Are there any witches in the cave or some devil? ...". And his hatred against the Catholic Church immediately leads him to think that it is some priest: "Will it not be some priest who entered the cave and hypnotism hypnotizes my children?". And he shouts: "Whoever you are, even a priest, come out!" Absolute silence. Then Bruno enters the cave with the intention of punching the strange being (as a soldier he also distinguished himself as a good boxer): «Who's here?», He shouts. But the cave is absolutely empty. He goes out and tries again to raise the children with the same result as before. Then the poor panicked man climbs the hill to seek help: "Help, help, come and help me!". But nobody sees and nobody must have heard it. He returns excitedly by the children who, still kneeling with folded hands, continue to say: "Beautiful Lady! ... Beautiful Lady! ...". He approaches and tries to move them ... He calls them: "Carlo, Isola, Gianfranco! ...", but the children remain motionless. And here Bruno begins to cry: "What will it be? ... what happened here? ...". And full of fear he raises his eyes and hands to heaven, shouting: "God save us!". As soon as he uttered this cry for help, Bruno sees two candid, transparent hands coming out from inside the cave, slowly approaching him, touching his eyes, making them fall like scales, like a veil that blinded him ... bad ... but then, suddenly his eyes are invaded by such a light that for a few moments everything disappears before him, children, cave ... and he feels light, ethereal, as if his spirit had been freed from matter. A great joy is born within him, something completely new. In that state of kidnapping, even the children no longer hear the usual exclamation. When Bruno starts seeing again after that moment of luminous blinding, he notices that the cave lights up until it disappears, swallowed by that light ... Only a block of tuff stands out and above this, barefoot, the figure of a woman wrapped in a halo of golden light, with features of a celestial beauty, untranslatable in human terms. Her hair is black, united on the head and just protruding, as much as the lawn-green coat that from the head descends along the sides to the feet allows. Under the mantle, a candid, luminous robe, surrounded by a pink band that descends to two flaps, to its right. The stature seems to be medium, the face color slightly brown, the apparent age of twenty five. In his right hand he holds a book not so bulky, of a cinerine color, leaning against his chest, while his left hand is resting on the book itself. The face of the Beautiful Lady translates an expression of maternal kindness, suffused with serene sadness. "My first impulse was to speak, to raise a cry, but feeling almost immobilized in my faculties, my voice died in my throat," the seer will confide. In the meantime, a very sweet floral scent had spread throughout the cave. And Bruno comments: "I too found myself next to my creatures, on my knees, with folded hands."

«I AM THE VIRGIN OF REVELATION»

Suddenly the Beautiful Lady begins to speak, starting a long revelation. He immediately presents himself: «I am the one who is in the divine Trinity ... I am the Virgin of Revelation ... You persecute me, now that's enough! Enter the holy fold, heavenly court on earth. The oath of God is and remains unchanging: the nine Fridays of the Sacred Heart that you made, lovingly pushed by your faithful bride, before starting the path of error, saved you! ». Bruno remembers that the voice of the Beautiful Lady was «so melodious, it sounded like music that entered into the ears; its beauty cannot even be explained, the light, dazzling, something extraordinary, as if the sun had entered the cave ». The conversation is long; it lasts about an hour and twenty minutes. The subjects touched by the Madonna are manifold. Some concern the seer directly and personally. Others concern the whole Church, with a particular reference to priests. Then there is a message to be personally delivered to the pope. At a certain point the Madonna moves one arm, the left one, and points the index finger downwards, indicating something at her feet ... Bruno follows the gesture with his eye and sees a black cloth on the ground, a cassock as a priest and beside a broken cross. "Here," explains the Virgin, "this is the sign that the Church will suffer, will be persecuted, broken; this is the sign that my children will undress ... You, be strong in the faith! ... ». The heavenly vision does not hide from the visionary that days of persecution and painful trials await him, but that she would have defended him with his maternal protection. Then Bruno is invited to pray a lot and to pray, recite the daily rosary. And it specifically specifies three intentions: the conversion of sinners, unbelievers and for the unity of Christians. And he reveals to him the value of the Hail Marys repeated in the rosary: "The Hail Marys that you say with faith and love are many golden arrows that reach the Heart of Jesus". He makes a beautiful promise to him: "I will convert the most obstinate with wonders that I will work with this land of sin". And as for one of his heavenly privileges that the seer fought and that had not yet been solemnly defined by the Magisterium of the Church (it will be three years later: did the personal message to the pope concern this proclamation? ...), the Virgin, with simplicity and clarity, takes away any doubt: «My body could not rot and not rot. My Son and the angels came to pick me up when I passed away ». With these words Mary also presented herself as Assumed into Heaven in body and soul. But it was necessary to give the seer the certainty that that experience he was living and that would have affected so much in his life was not a hallucination or a spell, let alone a deception of Satan. For this reason she says to him: «I want to give you a sure proof of the divine reality that you are living so that you can exclude any other motivation of your meeting, including that of the infernal enemy, as many will want you to believe. And this is the sign: you will have to go through the churches and the streets. For the churches to the first priest you meet and on the streets to each priest you meet, you will say: "Father, I must speak to her!". If he replies: "Hail Mary, son, what do you want, ask him to stop, because he is the one I have chosen. You will manifest to him what the heart will tell you and obey him; In fact, another priest will point out to you with these words: "That is for you". Continuing, Our Lady urges him to be "prudent, because science will deny God", then he gives him a secret message to be personally delivered to the "Holiness of the Father, supreme pastor of Christianity", accompanied however by another priest who will say to him: " Bruno, I feel connected to you ». "Then Our Lady", the seer reports, "speaks to me of what is happening in the world, of what will happen in the future, how the Church is going, how faith is going and that men will no longer believe ... So many things that are coming true now ... But many things will have to come true ... » And the heavenly Lady comforts him: "Some to whom you will narrate this vision will not believe you, but do not let yourself be depressed." At the end of the meeting, Our Lady bowed and said to Bruno: «I am the one who is in the divine Trinity. I am the Virgin of Revelation. Behold, before going away I say these words to you: Revelation is the Word of God, this Revelation speaks of me. That's why I gave this title: Virgin of Revelation ». Then he takes a few steps, turns and enters the cave wall. Then the great light ends and you see the Virgin slowly moving away. The direction taken, going away, is towards the basilica of S. Peter. Carlo is the first to come back and shouts: "Papa, you can still see the green cloak, the green dress!", And running into the cave: "I'm going to get it!". Instead he finds himself bumping into the rock and starts to cry, because he bumped his hands against it. Then everyone regains their senses. For a few moments they remain amazed and silent. "Poor dad," wrote Isola later in his notebook of memories; «When Our Lady left, he was pale and we stood around him asking him:“ But who was that Beautiful Lady? What he said?". He replied: "Our Lady! Afterwards I will tell you everything ”». Still in shock, Bruno very wisely asks the children separately, starting with Isola: "What have you seen?" The answer corresponds exactly to what he saw. The same thing answers Carlo. The youngest, Gianfranco, not yet knowing the name of the colors, only says that the Lady had a book in her hand to do her homework and ... chewed the American gum ... From this expression, Bruno realizes that he alone understood what Our Lady had said, and that the children had only felt the movement of their lips. Then he says to them: "Well, let's do one thing: let's clean inside the cave because what we've seen is something big ... But I don't know. Now let's shut up and clean inside the cave ». He is always the one who says: «You take all those rubbish and throw yourself into the bushes of thorns ... and here the ball, gone in the slope towards the road where the bus 223 stops, suddenly reappears where we had cleaned, where there 'were all those sinful things. The ball is there, on the ground. I take it, put it on that notebook where I had written the first notes, but I had not been able to finish everything. «Suddenly, all that land that we cleaned, all that dust that we raised, smelled. What a fragrance! The whole cave ... You touched the walls: perfume; you touched the ground: perfume; you went away: perfume. In short, everything there smelled. I wiped my eyes from the tears that came down and the happy children shouted: "We have seen the Beautiful Lady!" ». "Well! ... as I have already told you, let's shut up, for now let's not say anything!", The dad reminds the children. Then he sits on a boulder outside the cave and hastily writes down what happened to him, fixes his first hot impressions, but will finish the whole job at home. To the children who are looking at him he says: «You see, Daddy has always told you that inside that Catholic tabernacle there was no Jesus, who was a lie, an invention of the priests; now I'll show you where it is. Let's go down!". Everyone puts on their clothes removed for the heat and to play and they head towards the abbey of the Trappist fathers.

THAT AVE MARIA DI ISOLA

The small group descends from the eucalyptus hill and enters the abbey church. Everyone gets down on their knees at the first bank they find on the right. After a moment of silence, the father explains to the children: «The Beautiful Lady of the cave told us that Jesus is here. I previously taught you not to believe this and forbade you to pray. Jesus is in there, in that little house. Now I tell you: let's pray! We adore the Lord! ». Isola intervenes: "Dad, while you say this is the truth, what prayer do we do?" «My daughter, I would not know ...». "Let's say an Ave Maria," says the little girl. "Look, I don't remember the Ave Maria." "But I do, Dad!" "As you? And who taught you it? ». "When you sent me to school and gave me a ticket to give it to the teacher and I was so exempt from the hour of catechism, well, the first time I gave it to her, but then I didn't do it anymore because I was ashamed, so I always remained and then I learned the Ave Maria ». «Well, you say it ..., slowly, so we are following you too». Then the little girl starts: Ave Maria, full of grace ... And the other three: Ave, Maria, full of grace ... And so on until the final Amen. After that they go out and go back home. «Please, children, when we get home, don't say anything, keep quiet, because first I have to think about it, I have to find something that that Lady, the Beautiful Lady told me!» Says Bruno to his children. "Okay, dad, okay," they promise. But, going down the steps (because they lived in the basement) the children begin to shout to their friends and girlfriends: "We have seen the Beautiful Lady, we have seen the Beautiful Lady!". Everyone looks out, even his wife. Bruno, surprised, tries to remedy: «Come on, let's go inside ... up, up, nothing happened», and close the door. Of those moments the seer notes: "I was always nervous ... At that moment I was trying to stay as calm as possible ... I have always been a rude type, a rebellious type and this time I had to swallow, I had to endure ...". But let this scene be told by Isola who, in all simplicity, wrote in his notebook: «As soon as we arrived home, Mum came to meet us and, seeing Daddy pale and moved, asked him:“ Bruno, what have you done? What happened to you?". Dad, almost crying, said to us: "Go to bed!", And so Mom made us fall asleep. But I pretended to sleep and I saw dad who approached mom and said to her: “We have seen Our Lady, I ask you for forgiveness that I made you suffer, Jolanda. Can you say the rosary? ". And my mother replied, "I don't remember it well," and they knelt down to pray. " After this description of the daughter Isola, we listen to that of the direct protagonist: «So, since I made many of my wife, because I cheated on her, I sinned, I beat her, etc., you think that on April 11, despite being Protestant, she didn't it says: You can do this, you can do this other, this is a sin, it is not said: There are the ten commandments. Well, that 11 evening I had not slept at home, but I had spent the night, let's face it, with my friend ... The Virgin then gave me repentance. Then, remembering all these things, I kneel in front of my wife, in the kitchen, the children were in the room and kneeling myself, she also kneels: "How ?, do you kneel in front of me? I always knelt when you beat me, to say enough, I asked you for forgiveness of things I had not done "..." Then I say: "Now I ask you for forgiveness for what I have done, for the evil, for all that you I did against you physically. I ask you for forgiveness, because what the children said, now we don't say anything, but what the children said is true ... I taught you many bad things, I spoke against the Eucharist, against Our Lady, against the Pope , against the priests and the sacraments ... Now I don't know what happened ..., I feel changed ... "».

THE PROMISE WILL COME TRUE

But from that day Bruno's life became an anguish. The astonishment caused by the prodigious appearance showed no sign of diminishing and was noticeably shaken. He was tormented waiting for the sign promised by the Virgin to come true as confirmation of everything. Now he was no longer Protestant, nor did he intend to set foot in their "temple" and yet he was not yet Catholic, lacking his abjuration and confession. Moreover, given that Our Lady had given him the order to speak to the various priests he would meet, both on the street and in the church where he would enter, Bruno on the tram, to every priest to whom he made the ticket he said: "Father, I must speak to you." If that answered him, "What do you want?" Just tell me », Bruno replied:« No no, I was wrong, it's not her… Excuse me, you know ». Faced with this response from the conductor, some priest remained calm and went away, but someone else replied: "Who wants to make fun?". "But look, it's not a joke: it's something I feel!" Bruno tried to apologize. And this continuous expectation and relative disappointment, not to say frustration, had affected not only the morale but also the health of the seer, to the point that with the passing of the days he felt more and more sick and did not go to work anymore. And his wife asked him, "What's the matter with you?" You are losing weight! ». Indeed Jolanda had noticed that her husband's handkerchiefs were full of spit blood, "from pain, from suffering", Bruno will then explain, "because the" companions "came to the house and said to me:" But how, you don't come to to find us? Why?"". To which he replied: "I have something that ... I will come later." The Shepherd also showed up: «But how? You don't come to the meeting anymore? Why, what happened? " With patience, the usual answer: «Leave me alone: I am reflecting on something that must happen to me, I am waiting». It was an unnerving expectation that could not fail to insinuate a subtle fear: “What if it wasn't true? What if I was wrong? " But he thought back to the way in which the fact had occurred, to the children they too had seen (indeed, before him), to the mysterious scent felt by everyone ... And then the sudden change in his life ...: now he loved that Church that he had betrayed and fought so hard, on the contrary, he had never loved her like now. His heart, previously full of hatred for the Madonna, was now softened by the sweet memory of her who presented herself to him as "Virgin of Revelation". And he felt so mysteriously attracted to that small cave in the Tre Fontane grove that, as soon as he could, he returned up there. And up there he sensed again the wave of the mysterious perfume which, in some way, renewed the sweetness of that encounter with the Virgin. One evening, a few days after that April 12, he was in service right on bus 223 which passes the Tre Fontane, near the cave woods. At that point the bus breaks down and remains motionless on the road. Pending help, Bruno would like to take advantage to run to the cave, but he cannot abandon the vehicle. He sees some little girls, approaches them: «Go up there, in the first cave: there are two big stones, go and put flowers there, because Our Lady appeared to them! Come on, go, girls ». But the internal conflict showed no sign of abating, until one day his wife, seeing him in that pitiful state, asked him: "But tell me, what is it?" «Look», Bruno replies, «it's been many days and now we are at April 28th. So I have been waiting for sixteen days to meet a priest and I cannot find him ». «But, have you been to the parish? Maybe you will find him there, "advises his wife, in her simplicity and common sense. And Bruno: "No, I haven't been to the parish." «But go, it may be that there you will find a priest ...» We know from the seer himself why he hadn't gone to the parish before. It was there, in fact, that every Sunday he engaged in his religious battles when the faithful left Mass, so much so that the priests chased him away and called him the number one enemy of the parish. And so, welcoming the advice of his wife, one early morning, Bruno leaves the house, shaking because of his malaise, and goes to the church of his parish, the church of Ognissanti, on the Appia Nuova. He stands near the sacristy and waits in front of a large crucifix. Now at the extreme of exasperation, the poor man turns to the crucifix in front of him: «Look, if I don't meet the priest, the first one that I hit the ground is you and I'll tear you to pieces, as I tore you to pieces before », And wait. But it was worse. Bruno's exasperation and psychophysical decay had really reached the extreme limit. In fact, before leaving home he had made a terrible decision. He had gone to find the famous dagger bought in Toledo to kill the pope, had put it under his jacket and said to his wife: «Look, I will go: if I do not meet the priest, if I return and you see me with the dagger in hand, be sure that you die, the children and then I'll kill myself, because I can't take it anymore, because I can't live like this anymore ». To tell the truth, suicide was an idea that had begun to make headway every day in his mind. Sometimes he even felt pushed to throw himself under a tram ... He seemed to be more evil than when he was part of the Protestant sect ... He was actually going crazy. If he hadn't come to this yet, it was because he managed to cry a few nights and tell the Virgin to come to his aid. Next to that crucifix Bruno waits. A priest passes by: "I ask him?" He asks himself; But something inside tells him it's not that. And he turns around not to be seen. A second goes by ..., the same thing. And here comes from the sacristy a young priest, rather hasty, with a surplice… Bruno feels an inner impulse, as if he were being pushed towards him. He takes him by the sleeve of his surplice and shouts: "Father, I must speak to her!" "Hail Mary, son, what is it?" Hearing those words, Bruno has a jolt of joy and says: «I was waiting for these words that she had to say to me:" Hail Mary, son! ". Here, I am Protestant and I would like to become a Catholic ». "Look, do you see that priest inside the sacristy?" "Yes, father." "Go to him: that's right for you." That priest is Don Gilberto Carniel, who had already taught other Protestants who wanted to become Catholics. Bruno approaches him and says: "Father, I have to tell you something that happened to me ...". And he kneels before that priest who a few years earlier had brutally thrown out of his home on the occasion of the Easter blessing. Don Gilberto listens to the whole story and then says to him: "Now you have to do the abjuration and I have to prepare you." And so the priest began to go to his house to prepare him and his wife. Bruno, who has seen the words of the Virgin fully realized, is now calm and delighted. The first confirmation had been given. Now the second was missing. The dates are fixed: May 7 will be the day of abjuration and 8 the official return to the Catholic Church, to the parish. But on Tuesday 6 May Bruno does everything to find time to run to the cave to invoke the help of the Madonna and perhaps with the deep desire to see her again. It is known, whoever has seen the Madonna once, yearns to desire to see her again ... And a nostalgia which is never freed from throughout one's life. Once up there, he falls to his knees in memory and in prayer to the one who twenty-four days before had deigned to appear to him. And the prodigy is renewed. The cave lights up with a dazzling light and the gentle celestial figure of the Mother of God appears in the light. It says nothing. He only looks at him and smiles at him ... And that smile is the greatest proof of his satisfaction. She is also happy. Every word would break the charm of that smile. And with the smile of the Virgin we find the strength to take any step, in complete safety, whatever it costs, and all fear disappears. The next day, in their modest home, Bruno and Jolanda Cornacchiola, having confessed their sins, renounced. Here is how after years the seer remembers that date: «On day 8, just on May 8, there was a big party in the parish. There is also Father Rotondi to make a speech inside the church of Ognissanti and there, after my wife and I signed the parchment on day 7, my wife and the children finally enter the Church. Isola is confirmed because she had already been baptized, my wife had baptized her when I was in Spain. Carlo baptized him secretly, but Gianfranco, who was four years old, was baptized.

THE SECOND SIGN

Bruno Cornacchiola now regularly attends the church of Ognissanti. However, not everyone knows that he pushed the former Protestant to return to the Catholic Church, and those few who are aware of it are very cautious in talking about it, to avoid inappropriate chatter and false interpretations. To one of these, Don Mario Sfoggia, Bruno became particularly attached and thus informed him of the prodigious event of April 12 and of the new apparition of May 6. The priest, although young, is prudent. He realizes that it is not for him to decide if things are true or if it is hallucinations. Keep the secret and invite the visionary to pray a lot for the grace to persevere in the new life and to be enlightened regarding the promised signs. One day, 21 or 22 May, Don Mario shows Bruno the desire to go to the cave too: «Listen», she says, «I want to come with you to recite the rosary, in that place where you saw the Madonna» . "Okay, we're going on the 23rd, I'm free." And the invitation is also extended to a young man who attends the Catholic associations of the parish, Luciano Gatti, who however ignores the fact of the apparition and the real reason for that invitation. When the time has come for the appointment, Luciano does not show up and then, taken by impatience, Don Mario and Bruno leave without waiting for him. Upon reaching the cave, the two kneel near the stone where the Madonna had placed their feet and begin the recitation of the rosary. The priest, while responding to the Hail Marys, looks carefully at his friend to scrutinize his feelings and any particular expression that emerged on his face. And Friday, for which they recite the "painful mysteries". After which, Don Mario invites the visionary to recite the whole rosary. Accepted proposal. At the second "joyful mystery", the Visitation of Mary to Saint Elizabeth, Don Mario prays to Our Lady in her heart: "Visit us, enlighten us! Let the truth be known, that we are not deceived! ». Now it is the priest who intones the Hail Marys. Bruno replies regularly to the first two of the mystery of the visitation, but to the third he no longer answers! Then Don Mario wants to turn his head to the right to see it better and realize why he doesn't answer anymore. But while he is about to do it, he is hit as if by an electric discharge that immobilizes him, making him incapable of any slightest movement ... The heart is as if it rose in his throat, giving him a sense of suffocation ... He hears Bruno murmuring: «How beautiful it is ! ... How beautiful it is! ... But it is gray, it is not black ... ». Don Mario, although seeing nothing, feels a mysterious presence. Then he confided: «The visionary's physiognomy was calm, his natural bearing and no trace of exaltation or illness could be seen in him. Everything indicated a lucid spirit in a normal and healthy body. Sometimes he moved his lips slightly and from the whole it was understood that a mysterious Being kidnapped him. And here is that Don Mario, who had remained paralyzed, feels himself shaken: "Don Mario, she is revived!". And Bruno who speaks to him, full of joy. Now he appears very pale and transformed by an intense emotion. She tells him that during the vision the Madonna had placed her hands on the head to both of them and then she was gone, leaving an intense perfume. Perfume that persists and that also perceives Don Mario, who almost incredulously says: "Here ..., you put this perfume". Then he enters the cave again, comes out and smells Bruno ..., but Bruno has no perfume on him. At that moment Luciano Gatti arrives, panting, looking for his two companions who had left without waiting for him. Then the priest says to him: "Go inside the cave ..., listen ...: tell me what you feel?". The young man enters the cave and immediately exclaims: «What a perfume! What did you put the perfume bottles here? ' «No», shouts Don Mario, «Our Lady appeared in the cave!». Then enthusiastic, she embraces Bruno and says: "Bruno, I feel connected to you!". At these words the seer has a jolt and full of joy embraces Don Mario. Those words spoken by the priest were the sign that Our Lady had given him to indicate that he would be the one who would accompany him to the pope to deliver the message. The Beautiful Lady had fulfilled all her promises regarding the signs.

"ERA DE CICCIA! ..."

On that Friday May 30, after working all day, Bruno felt tired, but the cave continued to exercise a fascinating and irresistible call on him. That evening he felt particularly attracted, so he went there to say the rosary. Enter the cave and start praying all alone. And Our Lady appears to him by being preceded by that dazzling and visible light of hers at the same time. This time she gives him a message to bring: "Go to my beloved daughters, the Philippines Master Pies, and tell them to pray a lot for the unbelievers and for the unbelief of their ward." The visionary wants to immediately complete the Virgin's embassy but does not know these nuns, she would not know exactly where to find them. On her way down, she meets a woman to whom she asks: "What the hell is there a nunnery nearby?" "There is the school of the Pious Masters there," the woman replies. In fact, in one of those lonely houses, right on the roadside, these nuns had settled for thirty years at the invitation of Pope Benedict XV, opening a school for the children of the farmers of that suburban area. Bruno rings the door ... but nobody answers. Despite repeated attempts, the house remains silent and nobody opens the door. The nuns are still under the terror of the German occupation period and the subsequent movement of the Allied troops, and they no longer venture to respond, much less open the door as soon as night falls. The time is now 21. Bruno is forced to give up for that evening to transmit the message to the nuns and he returns home with the soul inundated with great joy that transfuses in the family: "Jolanda, children, I have seen the Madonna again!". His wife cries with emotion and the children clapping their hands: "Daddy, daddy, take us back to the cave!" We want to see her again! ». But one day, going to the cave, he is taken by a great sense of sadness and disappointment. From some signs he realizes that it has once again become a place of sin. Embittered, Bruno writes this heartfelt appeal on a sheet of paper and leaves it in the cave: «Do not desecrate this cave with impure sin! Whoever was an unhappy creature in the world of sin, overturn his pains at the feet of the Virgin of Revelation, confess his sins and drink from this source of mercy. Mary is the sweet mother of all sinners. Here is what he did for me a sinner. Militant in the ranks of Satan in the Adventist Protestant sect, I was an enemy of the Church and the Virgin. Here on April 12, the Virgin of Revelation appeared to me and my children, telling me to return to the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church, with signs and revelations that she herself showed me. The infinite mercy of God has conquered this enemy who now at his feet implores forgiveness and mercy. Love her, Maria is our sweet mother. Love the Church with its children! She is the cloak that covers us in the hell that breaks loose in the world. Pray a lot and remove the vices of the flesh. Pray. " He hangs this sheet on a stone at the entrance to the cave. We do not know what the impact of this appeal might have been on those who went to the cave to sin. We certainly know, however, that that sheet later ended up on the table of the police station of S. Paul.