OUR LADY OF REMEDIES

Day 291: February 27

Our Lady of Remedies, Chiclana de la Frontera, Andalusia, Spain



Our Lady of Remedies in Chiclana de la Frontera in Andalusia (Spain) is a very small figurine, but with a high religious value. It was found by a shepherd attracted by an extraordinary light under a palm tree.

The image of the Crowned Virgin of Remedies is located in the parish of the Holy Trinity, from the seventeenth century. In 1500, a mysterious light guided a shepherd who was in a place known as Los Palmaretes, for the many palm trees, to the small standing image of the Virgin. The light was right on a palm tree and at its feet digging he found the miraculous statuette. A shrine grew up around what was called Our Lady of Remedies.

It was then solemnly led in procession to the Church of the old hospital of the Confraternity of San Martino. From 1577 the old Hospitaller community of Augustinian hermit monks settled there. These adorned with the sacred belt at the waist, a distinctive sign of their order, were the propellers and announcers of devotion and worship for this small statue of the Virgin.

Testimonies of some miracles worked by this sacred image were collected, which was given the title of Blessed Virgin of Remedies following one of these. In 1738, a terrible drought struck the region. On February 13, the municipal administration decided to hold a novena, carrying the statue of Our Lady of Remedies and Jesus of  Nazarene in procession from the Augustinian monastery to the main church for 9 consecutive days.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, on February 24, the rain began to fall. It was still raining on February 27 when the council met to elect her patron saint of Chiclana de la Frontera. Pope Benedict XV confirmed her patronage of the city on June 12, 1916 and in memory of this occasion various services and extraordinary activities are organized during the summer.

It can be expected that this small statuette of the Madonna was hidden at the time of the invasions of the Moors by the first Spanish Christians. The city of Chiclana honors Our Lady of Remedies with an annual procession on the occasion of the feast of the Nativity of Mary, on September 8.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"As every suffering of Jesus was your suffering, so too every grace, every glory, every child of those sufferings is also your grace, your glory and your child!"

(Justin Russolillo, Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, Newark, 1996, p. 158)

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