by Sergio Tosatto
The phenomenon of prayer and veneration born in Fontanelle di Montichiari (Brescia) towards Maria Rosa Mystica and Mother of the Church, linked to the spiritual experience of Pierina Gilli, had its official recognition last year with the nihil obstat of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The events that occurred during the visionary’s life and the numerous celestial messages reported in her Diaries are the subject of study and, on 11 and 12 October, will be at the center of the first international conference held at the diocesan sanctuary. Among the various speakers, in addition to the theologians and Mariologists involved in the discernment that led to the positive judgment of the Dicastery, there is also Marisa Tanzini, President of the Rosa Mistica Fontanelle Foundation founded in 2014, who met the visionary of Montichiari in person.
Mrs Tanzini, your connection with the sanctuary and with the visionary goes back a long way.
«Being from Montichiari, I knew about the apparitions of the Madonna in the Cathedral in 1947 and then later at the Fontanelle, but it wasn’t as if they were followed. But around 1969-70, when Pierina, after many years of refuge in a religious house, returned to live in the town, this curiosity was reawakened.”
What effect did it have on you, as a young girl, to hear facts about the apparitions of the Madonna in your town?
«The first apparitions, those of 1947-48, almost seemed like a beautiful fairy tale. However, as an adult, the desire was born in me to delve deeper into what was underneath this story. One evening, through people we mutually know, my husband and I went to visit Pierina Gilli.”
Have you talked about the mariophanies?
«No, he spoke to us more generally about the importance of religion for every single person, about the love of the Madonna that Jesus gave us as a mother to help us on this journey. It was in a second meeting, where our parish priest was also present, that she communicated the wishes of the Madonna to us.”
So the content of the revelations, or at least part of them?
«There was no mention in the conversation of the primary message, that is, that She came for the conversion of priests and to call the consecrated to return to the primitive sense of prayer. That was the fundamental message. Instead, in our conversations, Pierina revealed to us other phrases, addressed to her by the Madonna, which remained imprinted in my heart: “I brought all my love to Montichiari. Here is my love that embraces the whole world, through you, little creature, I have given and still give you my love to transmit it to souls! Communicate love! What greater action than this? Love is charity, it is a prayer that rises to the Lord, it is a donation of ourselves, that’s all! Suffer for love, give in silence, and speak with prayer.”
At least initially there was an obstacle from the local official church to the spread of this devotion.
«Yes, there was, however, looking in hindsight, if on the one hand we received a blow from the local ecclesiastical authority, on the other we were consoled by this experience of renewal, by knowing priests like Monsignor Galbiati, by that invitation to Rome to enter St. Peter’s with the statue of Rosa Mystica… We interpreted them as help that the Lord put on our way».
You see the people who come to pray in Fontanelle today, have you got an idea, an identikit, of who these people are?
«They are people who are in need, who feel a little lost, perhaps due to a misfortune at home, a state of poverty, a change in social status, a difficulty in marriage. They come, pray and always find help, because in prayer there is always, always the help of the Madonna who is a mother, she does not exclude us, in one way or another she makes us see the positive aspect of the suffering of the moment”.
If you had to choose from the visionary’s words the most significant ones for you, what would they be?
“I would say: ‘Generous hearts are listening to my invitation! In the work of the Lord there is room for everyone.’ Depending on the gifts one has, he can find his own way to perfect his relationship with the Lord. From the farmer who keeps the courtyard of the sanctuary clean and gives water to the flowers, to the scholar who writes important articles and reflections, everyone has their task and their ability to collaborate.”
