October 9
Verge del Puig, El Puig, Horta Nord, Valencia, Spain
On September 8, 1237, St. Peter Nolasco found a 3' marble relief of the Virgin and Child buried beneath a bell in El Puig, where James I of Aragon was preparing to reconquer the nearby city of Valencia from the Moors. The following year, James decided to build a monastery in El Puig and to make its Virgin Valencia’s patron. Although perhaps not as old as suggested by the tradition that it was carved on a slab of St. Mary’s tomb and brought to Spain by angels, the image of El Puig is possibly a rare pre-iconoclastic work dating from the Byzantine occuption of Spain in the mid-500s. On Valencia Day, October 9, 1954, its canonical coronation took place. The fiesta of Santa Maria del Puig is celebrated on the first Sunday of September and the following Monday. (Information and image from "Real Monasterio Padres Mercedarios El Puig de Santa Maria," www.jdiezarnal.com/monasterioelpuig.html.)
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