May 23
Virgen de Gracia en Aés, Puente Viesgo, Pas-Miera, Cantabria, Spain
On May 23, 1575, as widow María Saínz de Quijano said the rosary while
watching sheep on Hediilla Mountain, she saw the Virgin appear "with such
great splendor that I didn't dare look at Her Majesty, and she said I should
ask the curate of the place to build a chapel in that spot and put in it an
image of the Virgin of Grace and one of St. Lawrence." To the woman's
objection that people wouldn't believe her, the Virgin answered that she
would make them believe. When the woman started to get up, she found she
could not, and stayed there, calling for her daughter Juana. Some neighbors
passing by found Juana, who carried her mother home on her back.
María asked Juana to get the local priest. She told him what had happened, and he then told his superior, the vicar of the valley, who dismissed it with a laugh, saying the shepherdess must have been dreaming. A few days later the vicar passed through that place with his servant, who said, "Sir, they say the Virgin recently appeared to a woman in this spot." The vicar laughed again, and was suddenly blind. The servant led him home. In fear and remorse, the vicar dictated a letter to the Archbishop, asking him to order construction of the chapel so that he would regain his sight.
The Archbishop ordered workers to began cutting wood for construction. They cut some from high on the mountain and some from lower down, at the apparition site. But they couldn't move the wood from the heights, although they moved that from the lower site easily. Carmen González Echegaray, citing records in the National Archives of Spain, doesn't say whether the seer and the vicar recovered, but presumably they were among the first to receive the graces of the Virgin of Aés. The chapel has been rebuilt and renovated several times over the centuries, most recently in 1993. An annual romería to the mountain shrine outside the village of Aés on May 23, the apparition anniversary, draws participants from the entire valley.
Sources:
 | María del Carmen González Echegaray, Guía para visitar los santuarios marianos de Cantabria, Ediciones Encuentro, Madrid, 1993 |
| "PATRIMONIO," Puente Viesgo, www.puenteviesgo.es/root/Historia/Patrimonio-FRAME.htm (picture) |
Also commemorated this date:
| Notre-Dame de Montciel, Lons-le-Saunier, Jura, Franche-Comté, France. Rebuilt shrine blessed & old statue installed, 1841. |
| Madonna delle Grazie, Monza, Monza and Brianza, Lombardy, Italy. Annunciation painting crowned, 1937. Feast March 25. |
| Madonna Costantinopolitana, Padua, Padua, Veneto, Italy (Madonna of Constantinople). Icon crowned, 1909. |
| Madonna del Suffragio, Grotte di Castro, Viterbo, Latium, Italy. Statue crowned, 1728. Feast September 8. |
| Madonna della Pietà, Crosia, Cosenza, Calabria, Italy. Statue wept, came alive, and spoke to two teenagers, 1987. |
| Onze Lieve Vrouw ter Nood Gods, Bergharen, Wijchen, Gelderland, Netherlands (Our Lady of God's Passion). Chapel consecrated, 1948, on site of 1300s chapel destroyed in the late 1600s. Main pilgrimage Sun. after August 15. Catholic women's pilgrimage in May. |
| St. Marien, Basel, Switzerland. New Catholic church consecrated, 1886, near site of former Notre-Dame Cathedral. |
| Perekopivka Mother of God, Varva, Varva, Chernihiv, Ukraine (May 10 Julian) |