Our Lady
of Siluva

One summer day, in 1608, a number of children were playing while tending their sheep in a field on the outskirts of the village of Siluva. They beheld a beautiful young woman standing on the rock holding a baby in her arms and weeping bitterly. The town which had lost its Catholic identity to the Calvinists over the course of 80 years was restored to the Faith.

1608-1612
Our Blessed Mother appeared to the shepherd children of Siluva.

1612
A blind man, more than 100 years old, lived in a nearby village. The stories of the apparitions reached him and he recalled a night, some eighty years before, when he helped Father Holubka bury an ironclad chest filled with church treasures beside a large rock. The villagers led him to the field of the apparitions to see if he could help locate the place where the treasures were buried. No sooner had he reached the spot, then his sight was miraculously restored. Falling to his knees with joy and gratitude, he pointed to the exact spot where the chest had been buried.

The ironclad chest was dug out of the ground and when it was opened, there – perfectly preserved – was the large painting of the Madonna and Child, several gold chalices, vestments, church deeds, and other documents. The painting was enshrined permanently in the Basilica of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary and is venerated to this day as the Miraculous Image of Siluva.

1651
"Close to the village, shepherds, with their herd grazing the lands of the church, saw on a large rock a girl with garnetted hair, holding a baby in her arms and weeping bitterly. When they witnessed this scene, one of them ran to the Calvinist catechist of Šiluva and reported what he had seen. The catechist, an unmarreid man called named Solomon, came to the stone, and also saw the Virgin crying, as shepherds had seen. Gathering his courage, he turned to her: "Girl, why are you weeping?" The girl replied: "I weep because at this site my Son was once adored, and now here are only fields plowed and sown. Having said these things she disappeared. The catechist despised the vision beleiving it to be an evil spirit.

Shepherds, returning the herd to the house, began to spread the news of this occurrence. One old farmer, more than one hundred years of age, almost blinded by old age, said to his neighbors: "Dear neighbors, Tell me what you want, but I will say that on the stone was not some kind of evil spirit but the Virgin appeared with her Son, which once stood in that place of honor an ancient Catholic Church. As far as I can remember, eighty years ago it was destroyed and disregarded."

Public veneration approved 1755.

Šiluva, Lithuania