Note: Translator Pauline Bancroft Flach died in 1966, less than 70 years ago. Therefore, this work is protected by copyright, restricting your legal rights to reproduce it. However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now. Read more about copyright.
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THE BELLS OF SAN PASQUALE ’ 83
will pay its weight in gold.” The hermit renewed
his petitions. At last the captain had his men
drive him on shore, and hoisted his sail to depart.
It looked as if the holy image was to be lost to
Sicily; but the hermit knelt down on one of the
lava blocks on the shore and prayed to God that
it might not be. And what happened? The ship
could not go. The anchor was up, the sail hoisted,
and the wind fresh; but for three long days the
ship lay as motionless as if it had been a rock. On
the third day the captain took the Madonna image
and threw it to the hermit, who still lay on the
shore. And immediately the ship glided out of the
harbor. The hermit carried the image to Monte
Chiaro, and it is still in Diamante, where it has a
chapel and an altar in the Cathedral.
Donna Micaela was now going to this Madonna
to pray for her father.
She sought out the Madonna’s chapel, which was
built in a dark corner of the Cathedral. The walls
were covered with votive offerings, with silver hearts
and pictures that had been given by all those who
had been helped by the Madonna of Diamante.
The image was hewn in black marble, and when
Donna Micaela saw it standing in its niche, high
and dark, and almost hidden by a golden railing, it
seemed to her that its face was beautiful, and that
it shone with mildness. And her heart was filled
with hope.
Here was the powerful queen of heaven; here was
the good Mother Mary; here was the afflicted
mother who understood every sorrow; here was one
who would not allow her father to be taken from her.
Here she would find help. She would need only
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