The Great Miracle of Our Lady Del Pilar

In 1637, a youngster employed on a farm, Juan Miguel Pellicer (1617-1647), born in Calanda, Spain in a family of seven children, fell from a cart. A wheel broke his right leg, crushing "the tibia right down the middle" (Article 7 of Proceedings, quoted by Deroo, 1977, 24). He was admitted to a hospital in Valencia on August 3, 1637, and then transferred to the royal hospital in Zaragoza in early October. Reduced to begging, he tried different remedies in vain. At the end of October, his leg was amputated "four fingers above the knee." He left the hospital in the spring of 1638 and returned to live in Calanda, among his own. The night of March 29, 1640, he slept in a room with his parents. In the morning, his father discovered two feet under the covers: the amputated leg had returned! A canonical trial began on June 5, 1640. On April 22, 1641, the municipality of Calanda chose Our Lady of the Pilar as its patron saint. On April 27, Bishop Apaolaza, Archbishop of Zaragoza, declared: "We say, vote and declare that Juan Miguel Pellicer (...) has miraculously recovered his right leg which previously had been amputated. This restitution is not the work of nature, but was carried out in a miraculous and admirable way and should be recognized as a miracle." (AASS, July, vol VI, 120 and Copia literal auténtica y del Proceso y sentencia de calificacio'n, Zaragoza, 1940, 28.) A medal to commemorate the miracle was struck in 1671. Some associate this miracle to an apparition of the Blessed Virgin. In actual fact, no evidence can lead us to believe this. Juan Miguel had merely prayed to Our Lady of the Pilar before going to bed and then he "had a dream in which he saw the Blessed Virgin rubbing his sore stump with oil from the lamps in the chapel of Saragossa."