Sanctuary of Saint Michael the Archangel

Well, there is actually a relic associated with St. Michael that many Catholics have.

It's a little stone from the sacred grotto at Monte Gargano in Italy.

St. Michael appeared in 490 to Bishop Lorenzo Majorano, the Bishop of Sopanto, and told the bishop that he had chosen the cave, that is St. Michael, had chosen the cave for himself and made it sacred by his presence.

Now, the bishop initially hesitated to use the grotto as a church.

They found a rough stone altar covered with a red cloth and topped by a cross.

Even more striking, the sanctuary preserves the tradition that there an imprint of a St. Michael's footprint was there, left in the rock of the grotto from the apparition.

this is why monte gargano has sometimes been called the celestial basilica a sanctuary understood to have chosen and actually been sanctified not by human hands consecrating it the bishop traditionally but through the presence of saint michael himself So the stones associated with the grotto, if you ever come across one, later became an important part of devotion to St. Michael, particularly after his reported apparition during a plague of 1656.

So the stones are associated both with the stone in which he stepped on and other stones there in the grotto.

And as commander of the Heavenly Army and protector of the Church, St. Michael is also the patron of soldiers and police and is traditionally depicted accompanying souls to judgment.

Today's feast, known as Michaelmas, commemorates the dedication of the Basilica of St. Michael on Mount Gargano in Italy and honors Michael as Prince of the Angels.

Ooh.

You know, today, this morning, I published a video.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Mount Gargano rises above the Adriatic Sea on the east coast of Italy.

Around the year 490, snuggled up next to this mountain like a kitten next to its mother, or like a pimple on your nose, lay the little town of Sipanto.

Livestock wandered and grazed all around the outskirts of town and along the foot of the mountain, the flocks spreading out from both like wool springing from an unsheared sheep.

One day, a prized bull from Gargano's flocks wandered from the herd and beyond the sight of the shepherds.

Gargano gathered a search party, and they set off to find it.

The bull was finally discovered, high upon Mount Gargano, lying at the entrance of a huge cave.

It wasn't injured.

Basil Phillips.

Monte Gargano.

One Easter holiday, the Redemptorist students who were studying theology at Eliseto under the care of the celebrated Father Di Meo conceived a great desire to visit the holy grotto of Monte Gargano.

Monte Gargano is the well-known shrine which the glorious Saint Michael had long ages before miraculously pointed out as the chosen spot where it was the divine will that special honor should be paid to him and to all the angelic choirs of heaven.

The Father Rector acceded to the request that was made to him to authorize a pilgrimage to this favored mountain and directed that Saint Gerard should be responsible for all the arrangements and be the guide of the whole party.

Father Fiocchi remembered the lifelong devotion of our saint to the great archangel.

Indeed, the holy brother's heart was full to overflowing at the thought of being thus permitted to pay public homage to one to whose loving care he had been so marvelously indebted in the days of his childhood for his first communion.

This famous expedition to Monte Gargano was an unbroken chain of prodigies and graces.

O. R.

Basil Phillips Monte Gargano One Easter holiday, the Redemptorist students, who were studying theology at Il Iseto, under the care of the celebrated Father De Meo, conceived a great desire to visit the holy grotto of Monte Gargano.

Monte Gargano is the well-known shrine which the glorious Saint Michael, had long ages before, miraculously pointed out as the chosen spot where it was the divine will that special honor should be paid to him and to all the angelic choirs of heaven.

The father rector acceded to the request that was made to him to authorize a pilgrimage to this favored mountain and directed that Saint Gerard should be responsible for all the arrangements and be the guide of the whole party.

Father Fiocchi remembered the lifelong devotion of our saint to the great archangel.

Indeed, the holy brother's heart was fooled to overflowing at the thought of being thus permitted to pay public homage to one to whose loving care he had been so marvellously indebted in the days of his childhood for his first communion this famous expedition to monte gargano was an unbroken chain of prodigies and graces the pilgrims numbered twelve in all ten students father de mayo and saint gerard the journey there and back could not at that time be accomplished in less than a week to provide for all their temporal necessities they had the magnificent sum of twelve shillings exactly a shilling apiece but there were giants on earth in those days.

The community at Iliceto was poor in these world's goods, but rich in the possession of a great saint among its members.

Superiors relied with confidence on the prudence and charity of Saint Gerard, above all on his power with God.

Christmas he spent at Verona.

In the following Lent, 1050, he made a pilgrimage to Monte Gargano.

Easter was spent in Rome, where a large synod was held, attended by 55 bishops and 32 abbots.

At this council, the teaching of Bierengar of Tours, who upheld a real, that is, ideal, as opposed to a material presence in the Holy Eucharist, was condemned.