Our Lady of Pancheraccia, the "Lourdes of Corsica"

Corsica, often called “the Island of Beauty,” is very Marian—there are countless churches and chapels dedicated to the Virgin Mary everywhere. On the eastern side of the island you can still find Pancheraccia Chapel, overlooking the Mediterranean sea.

It was in this remote place that Mary appeared to a lost and thirsty young girl, in the 18th century. Mary made a hole the ground and a source of water trickled out. Then she asked the child to have the people build a chapel there. The spring proved miraculous and Our Lady of Pancheraccia became in the eyes of many the "Lourdes of Corsica." Pilgrims come to the shrine in greater numbers each year. The most important annual pilgrimage takes place every September 8th, for the Nativity of Our Lady.

Here is the story of the apparition: "In the 18th century, a child aged twelve to fourteen had gone to a small wood near the village of Pancheraccia to gather wood. As she had wandered off and it was getting dark, she began to cry, when suddenly the Blessed Virgin appeared to her and asked her why she was crying. The child replied: I am lost and thirsty. At these words, the Virgin made a little water gush out of the ground and said: Drink this and tell the people of the village to build a chapel here. - Yes, the child replied, but people will not believe me. The Blessed Virgin answered: As proof, here is an indelible sign of the cross on your hand, and within a year, you will have left this world.

Time verified this prophecy. The village of Pancheraccia only had two hundred souls, but all went to work: the woods were cleared, the rocky ground leveled, and a chapel built in honor of the Madonna of Pancheraccia. Around 1850, the old statue was replaced by another in white marble, the one the faithful come to venerate today. The new statue represents the Madonna and Child: the Blessed Virgin, standing and carrying on her left arm the Child Jesus who holds the world in his hands."

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