November 18

Our Lady of "Rosary" Chiquinquira (Venezuela/Columbia) 1555

Our Lady of Boudieux. Bourges.

["This abbey of Benedictines was built in the year 928, by Ebbo, the Lord of Berry." Bzovius, ad ann. 928.]

Our Lady of "Rosary" Chiquinquira

with St. Anthony of Padua and St. Andrew the Apostle

Alonso de Narvaez, a Spanish painter, did a portrait of the Virgin of the Rosary on a rustic cloth woven by Indians. To paint in tempera he used pigments taken from the soil and herb and flower juices of the region. Since the cloth was nearly square (forty-four inches high and fourty-nine inches wide), to fill in the space the artist added next to the Virgin the figures of St. Anthony of Padua and St. Andrew, apostle. These were the patron saints respectively of the Spanish colonist who had commissioned the painting and the monk who had ordered it.

In 1562 the portrait was placed in a chapel with a straw roof that leaked, and in a short time the humidity, air and sun, had so damaged the painting that it was impossible to recognize what it was. In 1577 the damaged painting was moved to Chiquinquirá and left abandoned in a room that had formerly been the family oratory. Eight years later, Maria Ramos, a pious woman from Seville, cleaned and straightened out the modest chapel and placed in it the faded canvas that had once had Mary's image. Tradition has it that the prodigy took place on Friday, December 26, 1586. The image which this woman had so desired to contemplate stood out again, having recovered its colors and brightness. The instantaneous process of restoration gradually closed the scratches and holes in the cloth, overlaying them with color and light.

The Virgin of the Rosary in the center of the painting is about a meter high; she is looking towards the left as if to call attention to the nearly naked Child in her arms. The image has a serene countenance with a delicate smile which radiates sweetness. Both her face and the Child's are light colored. The Child has a little brightly-colored bird tied to his thumb and a small rosary hangs from his left hand. Our Lady leans over a half moon in a position suggesting that she is about to start walking. A white toque covers her head and her rose colored robe is covered by a sky blue cape. With the little finger of her left hand she holds a rosary which hangs in front of her, and in her right hand she has a queenly scepter.

The painting still shows traces of its former damage; the figures seem vague, but at a distance they acquire relief and color.

For three hundred years the painting of the Virgin of the Rosary of Chiquinquirá was unprotected, and thousands of pious objects were touched annually against the frail cotton cloth, some times with rods or canes in order to reach it, which should have destroyed it.

Pius VII declared Our Lady of Chiquinquirá patroness of Colombia and granted her her own liturgy. "La Chinita," as her people call her, was canonically crowned in 1915, and in 1927 her sanctuary was declared a Basilica.  -- taken from the mary page

Ave Maria!