May 8: Blessed Virgin Mary of Pompeii
Choral Prayer to Our Lady of the Rosary
It arrived wrapped in a sheet on a cart of manure—hardly a triumphant entrance for the image of Our Lady of the Rosary that Saint Bartolo Longo had brought from Naples on November 13, 1875. Its destination was the Valley of Pompeii, the place chosen for the construction of a Shrine dedicated to the Virgin. As humble as the journey was, so great was the devotion that later arose among the faithful.
Before this image, since 1883, every May 8 at noon, the famous *Supplication* is recited. The date was chosen by the Saint because it coincided with the feast of the apparition of the Archangel Michael on Mount Gargano, in Apulia. Moreover, it was on that very day in 1876 that the first stone of the Shrine was laid. The other date on which the Supplication is publicly recited is the first Sunday of October.
The Supplication was composed by Longo in response to the invitation of Pope Leo XIII to a renewed spiritual commitment through trust in Mary. The Pontiff made this appeal in his first encyclical on the Rosary, *Supremi Apostolatus Officio*, dated September 1, 1883.
The painting of the Madonna was given to the Saint by Sister Maria Concetta De Litala, from the convent of the Rosariello at Porta Medina in Naples. She herself had received it in safekeeping from Father Alberto Radente, the Saint’s confessor, who had purchased it from a junk dealer.
Longo’s reaction to the painting was one of great disappointment, as the canvas had been damaged by worms and time, with faded colors. Moreover, the Madonna was depicted offering the rosary to Saint Rose of Lima instead of Saint Catherine of Siena, as in the traditional Dominican iconography. The Saint was so hesitant that he did not wish to accept the painting, if not for the insistence of the religious sister.
Given the need for restoration, the painting was immediately entrusted to a Neapolitan artist, Guglielmo Galella, who carried out the necessary work. The image was first displayed for the veneration of the faithful on February 13, 1876. Mary’s intercession was not long in coming: on that very day in Naples, Clorinda Lucarelli, a 12-year-old girl, was healed of epileptic convulsions.
A further intervention on the painting was later requested by Saint Bartolo from another Neapolitan painter, Federico Maldarelli, whom he asked to modify the image of Saint Rose into Saint Catherine of Siena.