|
marian
anniversaries november
November 18
La Chinita, Maracaibo, Zulia, Venezuela
 In the early 1600s, Royal Treasury official Juan de Andrade
relocated from Colombia to Venezuela, bringing with him an image of the
miraculous Virgin of Colombia, Our Lady of Chiquinquirá. This pious man
decided to restore the dilapidated chapel of St. John of God in Maracaibo
and enshrine there his image of the Virgin. Over a century later, another
story furthered devotion to La Chinita, the Virgin of Maracaibo. It was said that a woman brought home a piece of wood from the
lake where she went to wash clothes, thinking it would make a good lid for
a water vessel. The next morning a knocking sound awoke her to behold a
radiant image of the Virgin of Chiquinquirá on the board. When local
authorities tried to take the miraculous portrait to the parish church of
Sts. Peter and Paul, it suddenly became too heavy to move, until someone
suggested taking it to the church of St. John of God. However it got
there, it has become the object of centuries of devotion. At dawn on
November 18, the Amanecer Gaitero (Bagpipe Sunrise), the people of
Maracaibo gather in the plaza in front of what is now the Basilica of Our
Lady, to sing "Las Mañanitas," the morning serenade often used
for birthdays. (Information from Mónica Domínguez, "Artistic Dis/Placement
in Colonial Maracaibo," Delaware Review of Latin American Studies,
Vol. 6 No. 1, June 30, 2005, www.udel.edu/LASP/Vol6-1Dominguez.html.
Picture from Mi Maracaibo, www.geocities.com/ptpc2k/.)
Also celebrated this date:
 | Notre-Dame de la Médaille Miraculeuse, Paris, France. Start of novena
preceding commemoration of apparition November 27. |
| Maria van Schiedam, Schiedam, South Holland, Netherlands. Apparition to
St. Lidwina, 1428, and miraculous crowning of statue. |
| Notre-Dame du Sacré-Coeur, Seleute, Porrentruy, Jura, Switzerland. Sanctuary and statue
consecrated, 1889. |
|
|