The Flying House

 The mysterious flying house was traditionally said to be the house of Mary, the Mother of Jesus from the place in Nazareth, historic Jewish town of lower Galilee in Northern Israel. 

Has anyone ever visited Loreto who has not seen with his own eyes and heard with his own ears the mighty works of God, and felt them in his soul?'

— St. Peter Canisius

The holiest house in the world is in Italy.

You read that right. It used to be in the Holy Land, but it moved.

The family home of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is located in the town of Loreto, Italy. How did it get there? Well, what you are about to read is the true story of how the home of the Holy Family in Nazareth was transported to Italy by angels. The story is so fascinating that you are probably going to want to go to Loreto after reading it. 

According to historians, the home of the Holy Family remained in Nazareth for 13 centuries. Then, on May 10, 1291, it suddenly disappeared! All that remained of the house was the foundation. 

The sudden disappearance of the house was noticed by everyone in Nazareth, leaving the entire community completely baffled. For a person

or group of persons to remove it so quickly without anyone noticing was impossible. 

(Consecration to St Joseph day 15)

 In the New Testament, Nazareth is associated to Jesus as his boyhood home. This house in Nazareth, was traditionally believed  where Mary, as a girl, received the announcement from the Archangel Gabriel, accepting the divine will.

It is a shrine that is allegedly the original dwelling where Mary was conceived, born and raised; the home of Jesus’  grandparents, Anne and Joachim and most importantly the house that the Annunciation of Gabriel occurred and God became incarnate.

In its 2000 year history, amazing events have been connected to this place. It is said that this dwelling has been moved four-five times by supernatural means for the purpose of protecting it.  

It is thought to have been originally built in the city of Nazareth. The house currently has only three walls because research suggests that the fourth wall was made up of the stone grotto found under the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth.  

  And an aperture in the western wall, called the Angel's Window, marking the point at which the Archangel Gabriel entered the house to make the Annunciation.   

Therefore, the remaining house consisted of three 16″ thick brick walls and was 31.25′ long by 13.4′ wide with is a single 7.4’.5″ door and one window.

 In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,  to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin’s name was Mary.  And coming to her, he said, “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 

But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

 Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.  He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,  and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”  

But Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” 

And the angel said to her in reply, “The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;  for nothing will be impossible for God.”  

Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” 

Then the angel departed from her. 

(Luke 1:26-38)  

Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, made a pilgrimage to Nazareth to protect the holy places of Our Lord and directed that a basilica be erected over the place of Annunciation. 

Mary’s home and the grotto became part of the crypt of the new church. 

The basilica protecting Mary’s home was considered one of the holiest sites of pilgrimage in early Christendom.

The Muslim Seljuk Turks invaded the Holy Land, intent on destroying anything sacred to Christians including the Basilica in Nazareth.

 Despite the destruction to the Basilica, the Holy House and grotto were left intact.   

 The Crusades began and a small trickle of Christian pilgrims kept the devotion of the Holy House alive. 

The Crusaders built a second Basilica.

1219: As historical evidence of the house’s existence, it is documented that St. Francis of Assisi visits and prays at the site in Nazareth Basilica that have been built over the original grotto.

 In the early years of the 13th century, St. Francis of Assisi established a monastery at Sirolo, north of Recanati close to Loreto. 

To a group of puzzled friars, Francis foretold that before the close of that century, a sanctuary would be built near there that the faithful would come from all over the world to visit. 

This prophecy proved true when the Holy House of Loreto allegedly appeared on Dec. 10, 1294.

St. Louis IX King of France, the saintly Crusader King, heard Mass in Nazareth in 1253 in the same chamber where the Angel announced the coming of Christ to the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

It was during the last crusade that St. Louis IX knelt on the ground that had once been frequented by our Lord, and received Him into his heart in Holy Communion. 

The saintly king deemed this to be a far greater privilege than his earthly royalty.

Muslims again overpowered the Crusaders and destroyed the Basilica of Annunciation. Miraculously, the  “Holy House” once again  survived the assault.

In 1263, Baybars, the Mamluk Sultan, destroyed the Christian buildings in Nazareth and declared the site off-limits to Latin clergy, as part of his bid to drive out the remaining Crusaders from Palestine.  While Arab Christian families continued to live in Nazareth, its status was reduced to that of a poor village. Pilgrims who visited the site in 1294 reported only a small church protecting the grotto.  

 The city declined under Mamluk rule, and following the Ottoman conquest, the city's Christian residents were expelled, only to return once Fakhr ad-Din II granted them permission to do so.

Under the Mamluk Sultanate in 1244, Jerusalem was sacked by the Khwarezmian Tartars, who decimated the city's Christian population and drove out the Jews.

 The Khwarezmian Tartars were driven out by the Ayyubids in 1247. From 1250 to 1517  Jerusalem and neighboring places were ruled by the Mamluks.

Year 1291: The defeated Christians Crusaders began their retreat leaving the “Holy House” unprotected.

According to tradition, the Holy House was transported out of Nazareth by angels. 

In the reports of her mystical experiences, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich spoke about the angelic transportation of the house. 

She states:

"I have often in vision witnessed the transporting of the Holy House to Loreto. For a long time, I could not believe it, and yet I continued to see it." 

"I saw the Holy House borne over the sea by seven angels. It had no foundation, but there was under it a shining surface of light. On either side was something like a handle. Three angels carried it on one side and three on the other; the seventh hovered in front of it, a long train of light after him."

May 9-10, 1291

The Holy House disappeared from the Basilica of the Annunciation in the Holy Land.

The House was located underneath the building at the crypt. 

It had been preserved from the Islam destruction in 1263, perpetrated by Alan ed-Din Taybar, Lieutenant of the Sultan of Cairo, Baybars Banokan.

Suddenly, in the space of one night, the holy walls were uprooted and disappeared from the basement of the basilica and arrived in Istria (continental Croatia meets the Adriatic) in Trsat.

Trsat, now a district of the city of Rijeka in Croatia, was the first place where the Holy House came to rest after leaving Nazareth. The miraculous event dates back to the night between May 9 and 10, 1291.

Halfway along the monumental staircase that leads to the sanctuary, in front of one of the chapels lining the steps, one finds these words carved in marble, probably dating back to the 14th century:  

"The House of the Blessed Virgin Mary came from Nazareth to Trsat in the year 1291 on the 10th of May and departed on the 10th of December 1294."

According to the report of the Isrian Franciscan Francesco Glavinich, in his Historia Tersattana, some woodcutters saw in the morning of May 10, 1291, a building in a clearing of the forest then present on that territory they had never seen before.  It was a small house, with an altar inside.  

The event did not go unnoticed, and the news of the discovery promptly spread and reached the local parish priest, Fr. Alessandro Giogiewich, who was bedridden and seriously ill with dropsy (stroke).

 Eager to see with his own eyes the small building that mysteriously arrived in the territory of his parish, the priest prayed to Our Lady, who appeared to him, healed him and informed him that the walls in question were those of her Nazareth residence, which had been preserved from profanation by the infidels. 

"Know, that I was born in this house; here I grew up in my early childhood." 

"Here at the annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel, I conceived the Divine Son through the work of the Holy Spirit here, the Word became flesh."  

"The apostles consecrated this dwelling and celebrated the august sacrifice in it..." 

"God, to whom nothing is impossible, is the author of miracle and so that you may become its witness and apostle, be healed. Your sudden return to health after such a long disease will confirm this miracle."

(Mary, the Mother of God)

Nicola Frangipani, the viceroy of the area, sent a 4-man delegation to Nazareth, including Fr Giogiewich himself, to make sure that it really was the Holy House of Our Lady. 

 The envoys are able to ascertain that the walls of the dwelling where the Incarnation took place were no longer in the Basilica of Annunciation.  Only their foundations remained. 

The perimeter of which matched exactly that of the walls gone to Trsat. 

December 9 and 10, 1294

 The three walls of the Holy House left Croatia just as mysteriously  as they had arrived  3-1/2  years ago.  

Pope Urban V was able to see the pain of many Croatian pilgrims who still mourned the departure of the Holy House from their land:

"Come, come back to us with your house, beautiful lady," they lamented.

  
Prince Nikola I of Kirk built the first small church on the place where the Holy House stood on Trsat. 

Trsat became a pilgrimage point of convergence, the reputation of which was strengthened by the astounding painting of the Lady of Trsat, which was a gift given to the inconsolable Croats in 1367 by Pope Urban V for the loss of the Holy House.  

However, the sadness of the Croatians has persisted over the centuries. 

Father Riera recounts a massive pilgrimage in 1559 when 500 men and women from Trsat went around the church and Holy House on their knees, as customary, holding lit candles in their hands and repeating aloud, all together:  

"Come, come back to us, O Mary, come back because you are abandoning us." 

   December 10, 1294

Presumably, in response to a Muslim invasion and threat, The Holy House disappeared from Tersatto/Trsat.

Tradition tells us that shepherds around Tersatto, reported witnessing the house being borne aloft by Angels and carried across the Adriatic Sea. It is well documented that it was at this time reported to have appeared in a wooded area, four miles from Recanati, Italy.

  The Holy House arrived in Ancona, which was a seaport of the Papal Estates.  In 1295 it stayed for 9 months at the Marche region. 

Father Matteo, a priest who was present. He left a document of which only a copy remained, found in 1732  in the Cathedral of Ancona.  The handwritten document reads: 

I, Father Matteo, pastor of St Onoufrius outside the Campo di Marte Gate of the City of Ancona, out of devotion, leave this memory of this miracle, which occured in the year 1295. The Holy House of the Mother of God settled in the forest around the Posatora neighborhood for 9 months;  and since I was really dismayed that so few people had remained because of great wars and plagues, I decided to put this written reminder under the sacred stone of the church of St Catherine.  May the Blessed Virgin  grant that it will be found in the appropriate time.  A most humble servant of God" 

 Three churches were built to commemorate the Holy House's sojourn of Ancona's Positora hill:

  
1.  Positora Church stands for the same hilly part where the Holy House stayed for 9 months. The name "posat et ora" means "land and pray" meaning that our lady's house landed there, where she prayed for the city.

Two marble plaques were set in the church of Positora attesting to the miracle that took place there. 

The first marble plaque from 13th or 14th century and was gone on mid-20th century due to restoration of the church. The legible part of it reads in Latin:  

"Quita futa reposata La Madonna di Loreta."

"This is where Loreta's Blessed Virgin came after landing."

The second marble plaque was a copy of the first one dated 1545 and is still present in the church. It reads: 

"In this forest the Holy House of the Mother of God rested for nine months. MCCXCV." 

2. Church in the town of  Barcaglione on the hills between Ancona and Falconara Marittima,  still stands at the same place where local inhabitants saw the Holy House flying from the sea. 

3.  The Church of Santa Maria de Nazareth, stood in Ancona. Today only the bell tower remains.  It was built by the bishops in the early 14th century beside the cathedral of the city to honor all the miraculous translations that had occurred.  The cult of the angelic translations was very strong in this church. 

 In 1295, the three walls of the Holy House arrived at a grove in the Recanati area located behind the current railroad station. That wild and marshy place was the property of a noble lady of Recanati named Loreta for which deserves the name of the town that houses the sanctuary. 

Today, a small church stands as the memorial in the area where the precious relic landed. This is now called "Banderuola" which means flag in Latin, because at that time of the miraculous events, some devotees hoisted a flag on the top of a very high pine tree to show pilgrims from faraway the exact point where the Holy House was located.  

Our Lady's dwelling stayed in this place for a few months, as attested by the said ancient plaque exposed in the Holy House.  

Il Teramano also gathered the declarations of two witnesses, Paolo di Rinalduzio and Francesco il Priore who swore that they had heard their grandparents tell of seeing the Holy House fly from the forest of Signora Loreta to Monte Prodo landing in the field belonging to the 2 brothers.  

Pilgrims had been coming in droves from various places.  They came and camped in the forest but brigands and criminals also flocked to the area to rob devotees, thus violence and danger was constantly expected.     

The Holy House settled for 8 months in the area and flowers and bushes continue to grow unlike in the forest where bushes and thorns thrive.  

The long line of trees also bowed upon its passage and remained that way until it grew old, fell by the works of nature or cut by villagers.  

Many of them were bowing towards the sea.

The three walls reached Mount Prodo to a field belonging to two brothers, Simon and Stefano Rinaldi of the Antici family.

The brothers were initially happy to be privileged by divine providence but the two brothers began to quarrel.  The pilgrims left rich votive gifts to honor the Mother of God. 

The two, taken by greed, entered into conflict.

 The Bishop of Montefeltro reported this problem to Pope Boniface VII to expropriate the land from the brothers and make it public soil. 

Finally, in the night between December 9th and 10th, 1294, the same messengers of God moved the Holy House, placing it a few meters outside the field belonging to the two brothers, in its present position, which is over an ancient public road.     

The people of Recanati like the people of Trsat, sent a commission of 16 men and not 4 like that of Trsat.  No less than 16 important people, very well considered in the Marche region, made an expedition to both Trsat and to Nazareth to verify whether it was true that the Holy House had been in Trsat, and whether it was true that it came from Nazareth. 

And they certified with official canonical documents, they even took a solemn vow, that they had verified the historical truth of this previous translation to Trsat. That the foundations remained in Nazareth and that there was an inscription that said that the three walls had been there until 1291 and it then disappeared.