The Priest Who Lost His Sight To See Our Lady

Related by Father Silvanus Razzi.

A devout priest who had a tender love for the Blessed Virgin Mary had heard her beauty praised so often that he longed to see his Lady just once, and he begged this favor of her with humble prayers. The kind mother sent an angel to tell him she would grant his wish and let him see her, but on one condition: that after seeing her he would become blind. He accepted.

One day Our Lady appeared to him; and so that he might not lose his sight altogether, he resolved at first to look at her with only one eye, keeping the other. But, carried away by the great beauty of Mary, he could not help gazing at her with both, and at that the Mother of God vanished, leaving him having lost the eye with which he had gazed. He was heartbroken at losing her presence, and wept, not for the lost eye, but because he had not beheld her fully. So he began to beg her again to appear to him, declaring himself ready to lose the other eye and be wholly blind. "I will be happy and content, my Lady," he said, "to be made completely blind for so good a cause, which will only leave me more in love with you and your beauty."

Mary was willing to grant his wish and again consoled him with her presence; but because this loving queen can never do harm to anyone, when she appeared the second time she not only did not take his other eye, she even restored to him the eye he had lost.

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Source:

Simplified retellings of the "example" stories that St. Alphonsus Liguori placed at the end of each section of The Glories of Mary. These are paraphrased in plain modern prose, faithful to the substance of the 1888 English translation. Liguori himself, in his author's "Protest," noted that the miracles and apparitions in the book are offered on human authority only, not as articles of faith.