Une Minute avec Marie
Faire connaître et aimer Marie
On May 4, 1986, Rosario Toscano, fifteen at the time, was sick in bed at his parents' home in Catania, Sicily, when he saw a great light and heard a feminine voice say to him: "You've suffered enough... That's enough now. That's enough now." The boy couldn't identify the person who had spoken to him, or where the voice came from.
The next day, a similar light appeared again from nowhere, flooding his room; but the boy heard no voice. On May 7, the light phenomenon repeated itself a third time. This time, Rosario heard these words: "Today, the moment has come to tell you who I am. I am Mary, the Mother of God, the Immaculate Conception."
On Sunday May 11, 1986, Rosario saw the Virgin Mary for the first time on a boulder known as “Belpasso Rock. Thirty-two other apparitions followed.
The 12 messages Rosario faithfully transmitted to the clergy are exceptionally clear and simple: peace, prayer, penance, conversion, the importance of reading the Bible and attending the sacraments (going to Mass several times a week), fasting, consecration to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, devotion to the holy angels, and praying the Rosary. All these messages neither detract from nor add anything to the tradition of the Church.
One theme dominates them all: God's infinite love. Mary didn't ask us to change the liturgy or to modify any point of theology: she just emphasized the Gospel!
It was an interesting series of apparitions for several reasons. One is the claim by Rosario that the Blessed Mother spread her hands as at Fatima and the ground opened up, revealing a vision of hell.
Another is that while the apparitions ceased in 1988, Rosario was promised one final last one, the time of which no one knows, or at least the seer hasn’t revealed. There were thirty-two apparitions, and then auricular locutions.
Relations between the Archbishop of Catania and Rosario were very positive from the outset. The prelate described Rosario as "a sound, balanced, and composed boy, who doesn't like to draw attention to himself". As the weeks went by, Rosario's parents came to believe his story. The people who knew them, both acquaintances and friends, were also convinced of the supernatural origin of the events and the spiritual richness of the messages.
His Excellency Luigi Bonmarito, the Archbishop of Catania, blessed a statue called “Our Lady of the Belpasso Rock” and consecrated a chapel as a Marian sanctuary in Belpasso in January of 2000 — attaching the Jubilee indulgence to it.
Every first of the month, the pilgrimage attracts over 3,000 people. Between 1986 and 1988, an estimated 150,000 pilgrims came to Belpasso. Today, this Marian shrine is still thriving.