From ComoZero [translated]:
All that you will read below is the transcription of the video recorded on July 11th in the Sanctuary of the Holy Trinity of Maccio (here is the official website ) during the “Prayer of the Supplication with explanation of the events of the Sanctuary”.
It is a film lasting one hour and 59 minutes in which, in front of a handful of faithful, the parish priest Don Luigi Savoldelli recounted in the most detailed way possible the visions of the choirmaster of the town, Gioacchino Genovese, the events that occurred in the church between 2000 and 2010, the mystical ecstasies, the dismay and wonder of the faithful, the mysterious messages that Genovese became the bearer of, the famous “miracle” of the water that bathed the altar and the entire process by which the Church decided to elevate the parish to a sanctuary with the announcement brought to Maccio by the bishop of Como, Diego Coletti, on the night of November 27, 2010. Here is what happened in that church, through the priest’s voice.
Don Luigi explains how the choirmaster’s “visions” began in 2000.
The voices gave him very precise instructions on what to say to certain people, from the bishop to the parishioners and sometimes to strangers. And often (when Genovese approached and spoke to the people who were the object of the revelations, ed.) this caused great surprise and embarrassment in others. Then an amnesia followed, and he did not remember what he had communicated. It was a more complex experience than the “interior locution”, which in the history of the Church has been attested many times, whereby a man or a woman hears a voice associated with a visual perception. That is, the one that Bernadette had in Lourdes, while she was gathering wood, she saw a lady and was astonished. Bernadette saw and heard that lady who was saying some things.
In the case of Maccio’s choirmaster, things were different.
In this case the vision is interior, intellectual. Gioacchino is a participant in an experience. He sees, hears and moves while remaining still, with his eyes closed. It is clear, however, that it is a very involving experience: it is not just hearing a voice. The experience happened here, when the church was closed. Around midday, Gioacchino came to pray, sometimes with me, sometimes alone. And in those moments there were the experiences. This continued for 4-5 years, with few people present. Even then, it would have been easy to let go, create prayer groups, write, talk about it. There was pressure, some wanted to make the thing known. But Bishop Maggiolini spoke several times with Gioacchino and many times with me too and always said: “Low profile, we are moving forward but this thing must be verified. Remain in obedience”. However, everything that happened here was done with the explicit permission of the bishop.
Suddenly, however, things change. And the choirmaster’s experiences become public.
At a certain point, this interior voice asked Giacchino to live those moments of prayer in a public way, together with the community, through the parish priest and the other priests. So the explicit request was to do novenas of prayers in the evening, at 10:30 p.m., or at 5 in the morning. So we began these moments. How did they take place? We prayed the rosary, I recited it, because it has always been said that prayer had to be led by a priest as a “guarantee” of ecclesiality. The church was semi-dark, Gioacchino was on his knees and usually went up to the altar towards the end, in front of the cross, or in front of the tabernacle. These moments were two, distinct: the first was an obvious conversation with someone who spoke to him. That was what he did: in front of the altar he moved towards the cross. Then he explained that the voice had told him to go to someone present in the church. So it happened that Gioacchino went to the person at the back and told him things that left him a bit like that. This whole thing lasted 10-15 minutes.
The moments of prayer and the visions of the choirmaster became increasingly intense, dramatic, with states of ecstasy and sudden fainting that sometimes frightened the faithful present in the church due to their “violence”.
Then came a second moment, much more intense. Gioacchino went up to the altar and at that moment it was as if he fainted. He fell to the ground and those who came for the first time were scared. He never hurt himself, he never broke his glasses, never had any trauma. And in that position of ecstasy, he remained for long periods of time, sometimes even more than half an hour. I often approached him, on my knees, and I assure you that he was in a state of unconsciousness. And you could hear him praying, talking to someone. He spoke of the saints, of Jesus, of the Pope, of the bishop, but you could only understand a few words. At the end, it was as if he suddenly woke up. Extremely tired, very tried, I lifted him up and carried him to the pew. At that moment he told me what he had experienced. The prayer ended with a community moment. This happened for years. In recent times we celebrated 9 novenas, 81 evenings a year where you never knew what was happening. The prayer ended very late, there were 30-40, even 70 people.
One of the objections to the events is why no medical-clinical tests have ever been carried out.
Why were there no medical investigations? We were never asked by the bishop to organize such things. We never made any films or recordings. There are many witnesses but nothing else.
Don Luigi Savoldelli then speaks of the appearance of mysterious signs on the altar of the church of Maccio.
During the novenas, especially in 2009-2010, they became visible signs on the altar, placed here immediately after the 90s, when the entire church was redone with a major renovation. This altar is a block of serpentine marble from Valmalenco weighing 30 quintals, it is not in the exact center of the presbytery and should be seen together with the cross. During prayer, in the second phase of the events, in ecstasy, Gioacchino raised his hand to the altar several times and where he slid his hand, signs of wetness and humidity appeared. These stains also appeared during prayer. After the prayers, those who went up to the altar felt the humidity: the stains grew larger, smaller like water or oil acting on a surface. But this is marble: the water should slide off. The cleaning ladies came immediately with the cloths but the stains did not come off. There are dozens of photographs that testify to all this.
Bishop Coletti then asked to investigate, so we asked whoever had put the altar, the Bernasconi company from Como that has now closed, and they said that it is impossible for a liquid to come out from inside the marble, especially in a place with a constant temperature, heated in the winter. Then Bishop Coletti asked the RIS of Parma to intervene. They took measurements, swabs, photos, analyses and then examined everything in Parma. The suspicion could have been that Gioacchino used substances such as perfumes, oil, wax that could stain. Or that they were traces of sweat from his hands. After a couple of months, the RIS communicated the results: only traces of water had been found, no more, no less. When the story became known, we were even threatened with complaints from an anti-fraud association. They thought that he was cheating, that there was only condensation on the altar due to the presence of so many people in the church. So why did it never form before or after? This happened only and exclusively during prayers with Gioacchino. Some even suggested that I had installed a small pump that I would turn on to let the water out. But, in the end, there was no complaint, obviously.
The priest then explains the possible meaning of Gioacchino Genovese’s visions and the water on the altar.
When the signs appeared, Joachim always had experiences regarding mercy and in his writings he attested that mercy was described as a river, or rather as a serous liquid, which filled the tabernacle (and there are sworn testimonies in this regard) and then came out to fertilize the world.
I would like to point out that these signs are on the altar, not on images as happened for example with the weeping of the Madonna in Syracuse. And these are not signs of blood on paintings or statues. I have never heard of signs of this type on the altar. Now, the altar in the church is the most important place together with the tabernacle, because it is the sacred place where the mystery of the Eucharist is celebrated. When a church is consecrated, the altar is also consecrated. This sign wants to rediscover the centrality of the altar, of the Eucharist and of the priestly ministry.
Everything that happened in that church, however, at a certain point had to be documented, written, recounted. And Gioacchino Genovese began to write his notebooks.
The bishop asked Gioacchino to write but he did not want to, he was afraid. But in the end he obeyed the request of Bishop Coletti. How these writings are composed: in church or more often in the parish house, Gioacchino would come with large green notebooks and say that he did not know what to write. Then, however, as if reliving what he had experienced in church, he began to write. It was not the so-called “automatic writing”, it was like when one follows an inspiration. Gioacchino was conscious, once there was the bishop. He wrote without ever stopping, without ever correcting, with very challenging concepts that concernthe trinityAndthe church, sometimes without understanding what he was writing but following an inspiration that forced him to write the realities he saw. I then retyped everything on the computer, and we explained to each other what we had written. He asked me several times: but what need is there if everything is in the catechism?
The writings were then given to the bishop, who formed a commission, and then sent them to Rome to the Congregation forthe Doctrine of the Faith, accompanied by testimonies, facts and documents. I would like to spread them but I cannot: the congregation He forbade it. And I obey, even if it’s a bit of a struggle.
As everyone knows, in the end the Congregation gave its approval and the bishop of Como elected the church of Maccio as a sanctuary. At that point, however, Gioacchino Genovese left his parish and the events – at least the public ones – stopped.
Gioacchino has distanced himself greatly from this experience, because many came here for him, to ask for intercessions, prayers. But he considers himself a messenger who receives a message, brings it to the church and then disappears, his task is finished. In reality Gioacchino still lives a very deep spiritual experience but goes to mass elsewhere. The community of the faithful has lived differently: there are those who have withdrawn, those who have felt even more involved. The life of the sanctuary continues as normal. It is open every day, all day, until 11 pm, which is not exactly a common time. The prayers of the Supplication to the Holy Trinity of Mercy are however all dictated by Gioacchino. I, once, with the church half dark, wrote them down.