OUR LADY OF THE WAY

Day 160: October 19

Our Lady of the Way, Valverde, Leon, Spain



La Virgen del Camino (Our Lady of the Way) is a town in the municipality of Valverde, in the province of Leon, Spain. It is located on a hill on Virgin Valley Creek, a tributary of the Oncina Creek, which flows into the Esla River, exposed to cold and wind, 920 meters above sea level. It owes its name to an apparition that took place in the year 1505. In this city there is the military airfield with the base of the Air Academy (non-commissioned officer aeronautics training school) and the airport of Leon.

On July 2, 1505, a shepherd from Velilla de la Reina, called Alvar Simón Fernández, was gathering his cattle when he saw flashes of light and later the Virgin Mary appeared to him in the place called El Humilladero and heard her say: "Go to the city and tell the bishop to come to this place and place and honor this image, my son wishes to appear here, for the good of this land." The shepherd answered: "Madam, how can they believe that you sent me?"

The virgin asked him for the slingshot and threw a small stone with it, saying, "When the bishop sees this stone it will be so big that he will know that I sent you, and the place where the stone is, is where my son and I want this image to be placed."

The first chapel was then built, which later became a real sanctuary located outside the city of Leon on the French Way to Santiago de Compostela, hence the title Our Lady of the Way.

In 1630 Paul Legot set to work to organize the manufacture of an altarpiece in gilded wood that would finally contain the sacred image. Unfortunately, this life-size image was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War, but the photos of that time have left us a valid testimony.

The altarpiece was finished in 1669 and in the same year a devotee donated a canvas of San José and an image representing the episode narrated in the apocryphal Gospels, the Rest during the flight into Egypt. The scene is really full of tenderness.

The Virgen del Camino was named patron saint of the Leonesa Region in 1914. The first stone of the sanctuary was laid in 1957, the work of the Dominican architect Friar Francisco Coello of Portugal and on September 5, 1961 it was recognized as a Basilica in honor of the Virgin and belongs to the order of the Dominicans commissioned by the bishop of Leon, Luis Almarcha.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"As far as our direct relationship with the Blessed Virgin is concerned, the soul is free to go from one extreme to the other, as represented by two heroes of holiness: St Louis Marie de Montfort and St John Eudes, who established these relationships and practices with God's inspiration."

(Ascension, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, New Jersey, 1997, pp. 376-377)

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