Life of the Congregation (2)

Water is an element linking Our Lady of the Beautiful Branch with Our Lady of the Miracles. Many are the graces granted by Our Mother Mary in the shrine next to the river Gave at Betharram and in the Church at Piazza del popolo (Rome), just a few steps away from the river Tiber.

The Madonna loves to gather communities of Betharram around stretches of water. This is what could be concluded from the “twin” miracles which took place at Betharram and Rome. It’s the course of history which reminds us of this. In Rome the miracle took place on 20 June 1525: a seven year old child fell in the Tiber in Rome and the current carried him away. His mother was in despair: who would be able to save him? Nearby on the bank of the river, there is an image of the Virgin Mary and it was to this image that the anguished mother turned. The child was saved and said that all the time he felt a hand holding his head above the water: the Virgin Mary saved him, preventing him from drowning. People flocked there in large numbers and towards the end of the year, a small chapel had already been build on the edge of the Tiber to honour our blessed Mary of Miracles. Later in 1679, the miraculous image was transferred to the church situated on the piazza del Popolo which was dedicated to her name.

A hundred years ago, in 1914, the fathers of Betharram received from Pope Pius X the pastoral care of this Marian sanctuary which was so close to their origins. The priests went to live there the year afterwards in 1915.

Once again it was our Lady in White who took care of them and accompanied them in their mission, this time in Rome, after they lost their home at the Church of the Holy Guardian Angels which was demolished in order to build a tunnel in the nearby Tritone street.

This year the Betharram community in Rome, with our brethen from the General House, started the commemoration of the centenary of their presence at Our Lady of Miracles with a holy mass and with a prayer of supplication to the Holy Virgin to continue to guide and protect our history of salvation.

The story which links the Virgin of the “Beautiful Branch” with the “Virgin of Miracles” allows us to invoke the Madonna as “the one who saves us from the waters.” That could simply seem like a nice story, but listening to all the tribulations of those who come to the sanctuary at Rome, you notice that many are “rivers” which threaten to “submerge” life and hope. In this way, the Madonna becomes an anchor of salvation for those who need to take up hope again on their journey. At the Renaissance, the church was situated near the north gate of the city of Rome. It was therefore the Virgin of Miracles who welcomed pilgrims arriving from the Via Francigena. The church was a safe port during a long and difficult route.

During the course of our history, it was the virgin who welcomed us after we had to leave the church of the Holy Guardian Angels. Today the Virgin still offers a shelter to escape from the noise of the Piazza del Popolo full of tourists, from its concerts, its human “river” formed by the daily comings and goings where everyone is a stranger to the next person, where you can be alone in the multitude, lost in the crowd.

The Virgin opened her maternal arms to two groups who meet here regularly: the charismatic group “Company of the friends of Jesus, Joseph and Mary” and the members of the “Association of separated Christian families”.

Celebrating and praying to “the one who saves from the waters” is for us all today a recognition of this debt of welcome which we have towards Mary: placed under her protection, we don’t drown, she gives us reason to hope in the Lord Jesus who is the “Beautiful Branch” to which we cling to save us, the air which allows us not to drown but to stay alive.

Faithful to this duty of welcome, the mission of the community of Betharram in Rome consists of continuing Mary’s gesture of salvation through prayer and welcoming those who occasionally or regularly cross the threshold of this sanctuary to ask for the sacrament of forgiveness, to address a prayer to the Lord Jesus or more simply to find an ear attentive to their story. The Church still responds today to its vocation as a place open to the current of the world, a safe haven where Mary teaches us to welcome and carries us towards salvation. It is in this spirit of service and recognition that we prepare to celebrate the 490th anniversary of the miracle and the centenary of the presence of the Betharram community on 20 June 2015.

Simone Panzeri scj