A dream that seemed to be cut short
In 2013, Teresa Corral, a woman from Reducción, in the province of Córdoba, embarked on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje, a town in Bosnia-Herzegovina known for alleged Marian apparitions. Her goal was to visit the site and bring an image of the Virgin of Peace back to her home. However, the trip began with a serious setback. As she was about to board the plane at the Buenos Aires airport, she fell on an escalator, hitting her head and body hard.
The unexpected intervention and the faith that persisted
Assisted by doctors who recommended that she not travel, and with only an hour before departure, an unknown woman approached Teresa and placed a small image of Our Lady of Peace in her hand. "I told the doctors, 'She brought me here and she will take me to her land,'" Corral recounts. Signing a liability waiver, she decided to continue the trip. Despite the initial pain, she says that during the twelve days of pilgrimage in Medjugorje, including the climb up the hill of apparitions, she felt no discomfort.
The discovery of the image and the return
Following the advice of a friend to "let the Virgin choose her," Teresa visited numerous shops without finding the image she felt was right. It was the day before her return when, in a small shop, she saw the sculpture. "I fell to my knees at her feet, crying," she recalls. A Spanish priest blessed it and instructed her "not to be stingy with anyone." On the return trip, both the image and Teresa were damaged: she was later diagnosed with two displaced vertebrae, while the sculpture arrived broken.
A new home for devotion
The image was restored by local artists and, after spending some time in the bell tower of the church in Reducción, was placed in a chapel that Teresa built in the courtyard of her home. True to the mandate she received, the sculpture does not remain there alone; it is periodically taken to the parish church for novenas and retreats, and has even been exhibited at events such as the Rural de Río Cuarto. "The Virgin belongs to everyone," says Teresa, who highlights how neighbors stop to pray in front of the chapel.
A sequence of significant events
For Teresa Corral, the entire experience was marked by a succession of events that she interprets as miracles: surviving the fall, the appearance of the holy card at the crucial moment, the absence of pain during the pilgrimage despite the injury, and the choice of the image. Even on the return trip, she learned of Pope Francis' election. "We came back broken: she and I. And now I have nothing, and the Virgin is beautiful," she concludes, sharing her story publicly for the first time after years.
Original source: www.puntal.com.ar (published on December 8, 2022)
