Une Minute avec Marie
Faire connaître et aimer Marie
On March 17, 1697, on the feast day of St. Patrick and in the same year penal laws were enacted in Ireland banning Catholic bishops and priests from the country, an image of the Virgin Mary known as the Weeping Irish Madonna shed tears of blood for three hours.
The painting is now kept in the cathedral of Gyor, Hungary, where it was taken by the bishop of Clonfert, Walter Lynch, when he fled from Ireland due to the English persecution of the Catholic Church led by Oliver Cromwell.
The image, whose original name was Our Lady Consoler of the Afflicted, shows the Mother of God with her hands folded in prayer as she looks down upon the Infant Jesus, who is lying in a little bed.
[...] More than 30 years after Lynch’s death, on March 17, 1697, the image, which was in the Gyor cathedral, began to weep blood during the 6 a.m. Mass, which was attested to by many.
A piece of linen was used to wipe the Virgin’s face, but the tears and blood continued to flow for about three hours.
The image was removed from its frame and examined, but no explanation could be given as to what had happened.
The linen cloth is kept in a glass and silver case in the Gyor cathedral, where it can be seen and venerated to this day. There is also a parchment in the cathedral signed by the priests and faithful present that day, as well as some Lutheran Protestants, Calvinists, and a rabbi from a Jewish synagogue who attested to the miracle.
Great celebrations commemorating the miraculous occurrence took place in 1797 on the 100th anniversary and again in 1897. In 1947, on the 250th anniversary of the prodigy, about 100,000 pilgrims came to venerate the image.
In 1913, the then-bishop of Toledo, Ohio, Joseph Schrembs, visited Gyor and had a copy of the image made for the Irish Catholics of his diocese. This year, the Diocese of Gyor has scheduled a series of celebrations and pilgrimages from March 17 to 19.