The extraordinary apparition of the Madonna in Rome

Alfonso Ratisbonne, a law graduate, a Jew, a boyfriend, a twenty-seven-year-old gambler, to whom everything promised the love, promises and resources of wealthy relatives of his bankers, the ridicule of the dommis and Catholic practices, the mocker of the Miraculous Medal, decided a day, to get distracted from traveling and visiting some cities of the West and the East, excluding Rome, which he hated, being the seat of the Pope.

Something mysterious happened in Naples. An irresistible force led him to book the place for the new trip, instead of Palermo, he booked for Rome. Arriving in the Eternal City, he visited many of his friends including Teodoro De Bussière, a fervent Catholic. The latter, knowing that he was a disbeliever, succeeded, in various conversations, in making him take the medal and promise to say the prayer to Our Lady of St. Bernard, to whom, however, with a mocking and indignant smile he said: "it means that it will be an opportunity for me , in my conversations with friends, to ridicule your beliefs ".

Do as you wish, De Bussière replied, and began to pray with his whole family for his conversion. On January 20 both of them went out. They stopped in front of the Church of S. Andrea delle Fratte. The Catholic went to the Sacristy to mark a Mass for a funeral, while the Jew preferred to visit the temple, curious to find art, but nothing attracted him, despite the works of Bernini, Borromini, Vanvitelli, Maini and other illustrious artists collected there. It was in the noon. The deserted church gave the image of an abandoned place; a black dog hopped past him and disappeared.

Suddenly ... I leave the word to the seer, according to how he had to testify with oath, during the trial
what followed ...

"As I walked around the church and came to the funeral preparations, suddenly you feel me taken by a certain disturbance, and I saw like a veil before me, it seemed to me the church all dark, except for a chapel, almost all the light of the same Church had concentrated on that. I raised my eyes to the chapel radiant with so much light, and saw on the Altar of the same, standing, alive, large, majestic, beautiful, merciful the Most Holy Virgin Mary similar to the act and structure to the image that is seen in the Miraculous Medal of the Immaculate Conception. At this sight I fell on my knees to the place where I was; I therefore tried several times to raise my eyes to the Most Holy Virgin, but the reverence and splendor made them lower me, which however did not prevent the evidence of that apparition. I stared at her hands, and saw in them the expression of forgiveness and mercy.

Although she said nothing to me, I understood the horror of the state I was in, the deformity of sin, the beauty of the Catholic religion, in a word she understood everything. "I fell Jewish and I got up Christian".

Later the convert made a beautiful journey that led him to the priesthood and to leave as a missionary in his homeland of Palestine, where he died as a saint. In fact, on January 31 he was baptized with the name of Alfonso Maria. He broke off his engagement to Flora and entered the Society of Jesus, becoming a priest in 1848. He then moved on to the Congregation of Religious of Our Lady of Zion, established for the conversion of Jews and Muslims, founding a branch in Palestine.

This latter fact has deeply affected the history of this central church, making it rise to the Marian Shrine. In 1848, on January 18, the altar on which it appeared, already dedicated to St. Michael, was consecrated to the Blessed Virgin Mary with the title of the Medal, in memory of the Miraculous Medal that the Ratisbonne had at the time of his conversion.

The people, however, called the Virgin who appeared in St. Andrew the "MADONNA Del MIRACOLO", since the conversion had resonance all over the world. In the space of a few years it has become one of the most famous and renowned Sanctuaries. Everyone from every nation thought they were too lucky to have visited this place. The devout race of priests, who rushed .. and the edifying devotion of many prelates and bishops in offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to that Altar were such a moving and grateful sight for the heart of the Roman devotees.

The words of a witness such as P. D'Aversa find confirmation in the long list of saints and blessed who prayed before the Virgin of the Miracle. So S. Maria Crocifissa di Rosa, founder of the Ancelle della Carità (1850), S. Giovanni Bosco on Holy Saturday of 1880 to implore the approval of the constitution of her family, S. Teresa of the Child Jesus (1887), S. Vincenzo Pallotti, Blessed Luigi Guanella, S.Luigi Orione, Maria Teresa Lodocowska, Ven. Bernard Clausi, etc. But a name that cannot be forgotten is that of S. Massimiliano Kolbe, who was still a cleric at the college of S. Teodoro (20 January 1917), hearing his teacher P. Stefano Ignudi describe the apparition to the Ratisbonne, had his first inspiration of the Militia of the Immaculate Conception. Not only that, he came to S.Andrea on April 29, 1918 to celebrate the first Mass at the altar of his Madonna.