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marian
anniversaries july
 July 20
Nuestra Señora de Zocueca, Bailén, Jaén,
Andalucía, Spain
Around 1150, Mozarabic
Christians built a rude chapel near the Rumblar River, the Guadalquivir
tribuitary that waters this region in southern Spain, at a place called
Zocueca. When Alfonso VII
reconquered the area in 1155,
people gave thanks to the Virgin at the shrine. In the 1400s it was was
rebuilt, and from this period the graceful, standing Gothic statue of the
Mother and Child seems to date, although tradition holds it to be older than
the first chapel. During the cholera epidemic of 1681, the people vowed to
hold an annual feast in honor of the Virgin, preceded by a day of fasting,
if she would save them. The promise has been kept on August 5 ever since.
The chapel was redecorated in Baroque style in the 1700s. In 1808,
people again thanked the Virgin of Zocueca for her help during the Battle of
Bailén, the first Spanish victory against Napoleon. Annually since 1810, the
municipality commemorates the battle with a series of civil, patriotic, and
religious events July 17-22, reaching their greatest splendor on the days of
the 19th, anniversary of the battle, and the 20th, when the Patroness, the
Virgin of Zocueca, goes through the city streets in procession. Another
event in her honor, the romería or pilgrimage, takes place the last
Sunday in September in thanks for her help ending a plague
of locusts that threatened the region's crops in the late 1800s. Men carry
the statue, bristling with decorations, on their shoulders from its usual
home in the Church of the Incarnation in Bailén to the sanctuary four miles
distant, where overnight vigil is kept before a sunrise mass. In 1925, the
Virgin of Zocueca was proclaimed "Captain General" and her statue given a
military sash. After the statue burned in the Civil War, religious
sculptor Jose Maria Alcacer made a replica, blessed on August 5, 1954.
Sources include:
 | Ayuntamiento de Bailén, www.ayto-bailen.com |
| "Virgen de Zocueca - BAILEN," Pueblos
de España, www.pueblos-espana.org (photo) |
Also celebrated this date:
| Virgen de la Libranza, Las Aguadas, Libertador General San Martín, San
Luis, Argentina. Procession at chapel in Santa Bernardita locality. |
| Virgen de la Libranza (Virgin of Absolution), El Sauce, Chacabuco, San Luis, Argentina.
Prayers and floral offerings at private shrine. |
| Notre Dame d’Ay, Saint-Romain d’Ay,
Ardèche, Rhône-Alpes, France. Black
Virgin crowned, 1890. |
| Maria Santissima Avvocata Nostra, Vicovaro, Roma, Latium, Italy (Most Holy
Mary Our Advocate). Virgin's
eyes first watered in painting in Tempietto San Giacomo, 1796. |
| Translation of the Icon of the Mother of God
"Blachernitissa" to Moscow, Russia (July 7, 1654) |
| Mother of God, Abalak, Tobolsk, Tyumen, Russia (July 8 old calendar) |
| Santa María la Mayor, Burgos, Castile and Léon, Spain (Saint Mary the
Greater). First stone of
Gothic cathedral placed, 1221. Fiesta August 15. |
| Our Lady of Caversham, Caversham, Berkshire, England, United Kingdom.
Statue crowned, 1996. |
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