OUR LADY OF CHARITY

Day 168: October 27

Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, Oucun, Cuba



Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre is the patron saint of Cuba. Its sanctuary is located 27 km from Santiago de Cuba, in the village of El Cobre, where copper has been mined for more than four centuries. There are even three legends here and all different, yet whites, mestizos, indigenous, mulattos and Afro-Cubans, all come to implore the intervention of the Virgin who promptly rushes to her.

Under the communist regime of Fidel Castro (which began in 1959), the Church experienced bloody persecution during the early years. Our Lady then became a silent refuge of faith (especially in Camagüey).

According to tradition, Alonso de Oljeda, a Spanish commander, was in danger in the Caribbean Sea. He carried a statue of the Virgin and Child and made a vow to build a chapel if he escaped the shipwreck. He landed in Cuba and fulfilled his vow in El Cobre. But, according to another tradition, there were three men, two natives and a negro. During a storm, they saw the statue floating on the water, bearing on its base this inscription: "I am the Virgin of Charity." This version is plausible: when the Spaniards were in danger, they threw the sacred objects overboard, so that the pirates would not desecrate them.

There is still a third version of the facts that tells that the statue was met in the water by some workers of the salt pans, without the Virgin's cloth mantle being wet.

The Virgin is depicted holding the child Jesus on her left arm and a cross in her right hand. Immediately transported to the village of Barajagua, it was then transferred permanently to the village of El Cobre where the inhabitants, in 1648, erected its first chapel. But little by little the chapel will be enlarged becoming a church in 1680. The miraculous fame of the statue then spread throughout the island, arousing the devotion of the inhabitants: whites, mestizos, natives, mulattos or Afro-Cubans, all came to implore the intervention of the Virgin. The sanctuary is always adorned with flowers.

It is located on a hill and you have to climb 240 steps to reach it. Inside, the Chapel of Miracles houses the votive offerings left there by those who obtained a grace from the Virgin. Above the main altar of the basilica, the Virgin and the Child Jesus wear a golden crown on their heads. This holy image of Mary refers to the religious syncretism of the Cubans: the aborigines assimilate her to "Atabey", the native deity, while the Africans see in her "Oshun", the mother goddess of the Waters.

For Cubans, this Virgin is also a patriotic symbol. It is in front of this statue of the Virgin, in fact, that the royal decree granting freedom to slaves working in the copper mines of El Cobre was read on May 19, 1801. It was there that in 1868, during the war of independence, the separatist rebels – the "mambis" – entrusted themselves to the Virgin "mambisa" to grant them victory against the Spanish forces; And it is also there that the fighters of the Liberation Army, after independence, officially celebrated his feast day, September 8, 1898.

Our Lady of Charity was proclaimed patroness of Cuba by Benedict XV on May 10, 1916, in response to requests from veterans of the War of Independence. A few years later, in 1927, the statue, 84 cm high, was transported to a larger sanctuary and, in 1936, was solemnly crowned by a delegation of Pope Pius XI.

Later, after the triumph of the Revolution of 1959, relations between the Church and the communist government were broken, but the "National Shrine of Our Lady of the Cobre" was nevertheless elevated to the rank of minor basilica in 1977 by St Paul VI. In 1998, St John Paul II came to Santiago de Cuba and visited the shrine of the Virgin, crowning this holy image as "Queen and Patroness of Cuba."

Finally, in August 2010, after 51 years of absence, the Virgin of El Cobre was carried again in procession through the streets of Cuba, as a symbol of devotion, patriotism and reconciliation. On September 8, pilgrims flock to the shrine, laden with flowers and candles. Some limit themselves to praying, others kneel down the steps of the Basilica, while still others climb accompanying a disabled relative. The faithful bring back small stones containing copper particles, a symbol of the protection and love of their holy Mother, Queen and Patroness of Cuba.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"We hope that the Blessed Mother will so mold us that we may become the object of the Blessed Trinity's pleasure and delight, truly, as a soul spouse of God."

(Ascension, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, New Jersey, 1997, p. 381)

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