"The Little Lourdes of Italy" — Shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows

Episode 6 – Rome Is Watching When news of the Marian apparitions of Castelpetroso reached Rome in 1888, everything changed. What began as the testimony of two humble women in a small Italian village soon attracted the attention of Pope Leo XIII and the Vatican. In this episode of The Little Lourdes of Italy , Danny Cicchino tells the remarkable story of the Church's investigation into the appa...

A phone call across the ocean. In this episode, Danny Cicchino shares the story of Nicola Antonio Di Marzio, a member of the Italian diaspora living in Florida whose family roots reach back to Castelpetroso. Halfway through "The Story of a Miracle," this is a quieter, more personal chapter — the story of one man whose heart never left the mountain where Our Lady of Sorrows appeared in 1888, told b...

In July 1888, a few months after two peasant women had seen Our Lady of Sorrows on the rock of Cesa tra Santi, something else happened on that mountain. At the base of the rock, just below the place of the apparitions, water began to flow. It was the middle of an unusual dry season — streams had run low, wells were giving little, the fields were parched. And then, suddenly, there was water. In thi...

When two peasant women came down from the mountain claiming they had seen the Mother of God, the parish priest of Castelpetroso did not believe them. His name was Don Achille Ferrara. He was a man of reason, formed in seminary, accustomed to the quiet rhythm of a small mountain parish. He had heard stories before — visions, dreams, voices in the night. He knew how the human mind could play tricks,...

It was a Thursday, the day before Palm Sunday. Two peasant women — Fabiana Cecchino and Serafina Valentino — climbed a mountain in Molise to work the land, with a few sheep at their side. One sheep wandered off. Fabiana went to find it. And what she saw at Cesa tra Santi would change Castelpetroso forever. In this episode, Danny Cicchino recounts the first apparition of Our Lady of Sorrows : half-...

My name is Danny Cicchino . I was born in Castelpetroso , a small village in Molise , southern Italy — and I grew up in New Jersey . All my life, I’ve carried this place in my heart. In this first episode, I tell you who I am, why I’m making this podcast, and what happened on a rocky mountainside in 1888 that changed everything — when two peasant women named Fabiana Cecchino and Serafina Valentino...