Our recent pilgrimage to Italy was a tour of high-flying miracles. After an overnight stop with the monks of Norcia, we travelled to Loreto where legend has it that the Virgin’s house in Nazareth was miraculously flown to an Italian town on the Adriatic. After touring the church and praying in the Holy House, we drove to Osimo where the incorrupt relics of the famous levitator and miracle worker, St Joseph of Cupertino, are housed.
When confronted with prodigies like flying houses and floating friars the Church expects us to be cautious. Yes, miracles – quite astounding miracles – are possible, but we are to use our reason and look for every natural explanation first. When it comes to the Holy House of Loreto, it would seem that there is some masonry that appears to match that of houses in Palestine, but it seems more likely that the masonry (if it is indeed from a village in Galilee) was transported by members of the Byzantine Angeli family around 1291 when the Holy Land fell to the Mamluks after the Crusader era, and was thus, by legend, assigned to “the angels”.
