Of Mariano Montagnin
Start again! Start again! Pope Francis has launched another key word for the 2025 Jubilee. And who better than her, the Madonnina del Grappa, Mary Help of Christians, kept in the chapel that stands on the top of Monte Grappa, between the shrine of the Italian fallen and the Austro-Hungarian one , can it represent starting over with hope and trust?
It has been included in the Jubilee 2025 sites and pilgrims will be able to go and visit it up there, in the Venetian Prealps with the Dolomites behind it, to carry out the rites of indulgence.
The bronze statue of the Madonna with Blessing Child was brought on the back of a mule in 1901, the day after the Jubilee of the century proclaimed by Leo XIII, by the then patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Giuseppe Sarto. The ceremony took place on August 4, 1901, and two years later in 1903, again on August 4, Sarto was elected pope with the name of Pius
The Madonnina inaugurated the century as a symbol of hope. At an altitude of 1770, that Madonna resisted the First World War: she found herself witness to furious trench battles, fighting for a few meters of land at the cost of tens of thousands of deaths. The soldiers engaged in battle on opposite fronts turned to her.
She was also “wounded”: a grenade broke her arm. It was restored in Venice and brought back there with a historic ceremony by General Giardino, after a journey that took it throughout Italy, from Bologna to Genoa, from Padua to Bassano, Castelfranco and Venice. In Florence it exists the Work of Divine Mercy, Madonnina del Grappa for minorsthe military infantry chaplain Don Giulio Facibeni founded it in 1915 to host the children of those recalled to war.
Returning to Cima Grappa she had to witness another tragedy: the Nazi-fascist roundup of September 1944. The partisans, barricaded on the top of the mountain, considered sacred to the homeland, gathered around her for the last mass, in August, before being overwhelmed and massacred in the September roundup. Our Lady survived, also consoling this pain.
Today its feast, August 4, commemorates the ascent of Pope Sarto to place it up there. It is rooted in the communities of Grappa and the Venetian foothills and has become a celebration of brotherhood. For several years the fighting associations and the civil and military authorities of the nations that fought there have met: Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia.
The Madonna of Rebirth and Reconciliation today is no longer found in the original building. On the occasion of the construction of the military shrine, a small cylindrical temple was built, surmounted by a copper dome symbolizing Calvary. From the center rises the symbol of redemption, the Cross. The 14 Stations of the Cross hang along the walls. In the altar there are the relics of San Marco Evangelista, San Prosdocimo, Sant’Antonio and Santa Giustina.
It rises in the midst of nature of rare beauty. Pope Sarto wanted it there so that it could be visible from the plain, from Venice, Padua, Treviso, Vicenza and from the Belluno mountains.
The Madonna belongs to the Diocese of Padua and is cared for by the Opera Madonna del Grappa. Symbol of rebirth after great tragedies, guardian of the souls of the fallen who rest in the great military shrine, witness of many jubilees looking to the future, starting from that of 1900. At his feet he welcomed and welcomes, as friends and brothers, men who they were bitterly fought, distributing maternal forgiveness. It symbolizes a stubborn hope that does not give up even in the face of immense tragedies.
