The prince was healed, as the Virgin had promised

Carquere is a village in Portugal, not far from the Douro River, near Resende. Every year, on the 4th Sunday of May, the feast of Santa Maria de Carquere is celebrated. According to tradition, Our Lady of Carquere is associated with the miraculous healing of Prince Alfonso Henriques, who was to become the first king of Portugal. This prince had been born a cripple, paralyzed from the knees down.

His tutor, the knight Egas de Monis, prayed fervently to the Virgin Mary, asking for the healing of the four-year-old prince’s legs. And behold, one night in the year 1109 or 1113, Our Lady appeared to Monis. She told him to go to the nearby hills above the Douro River and to go to a particular place in the hills above the river that she indicated to him. “Dig there and you will find a church that, in another time, was built in my name, and you will also find an image of me. Place the child on the altar and spend the night there, and he will be cured, because my Son wants him to destroy many enemies of the faith.”

Egas de Monis did as he was told. He discovered a very small statue in the ruins of the chapel—this statuette is called Our Lady of Carquere. He carried the young prince to the altar of the church, found in the middle of the ruins, and the prince was healed, as the Virgin Marie had promised. The old chapel of Carquere became famous throughout Portugal.

Today, traces of the altar and the church dating from the Romanesque period have been found. In the 19^th century, a large part of this religious heritage was lost by the secularization of society, but in the 20th century, Carquere became one of the pillars of the Portuguese Catholic heritage.

Paulette Leblanc

Radio Silence