Our Lady of Lujan and her devoted guardian

“I belong to Our Lady, and no one else.” These words were the defense posed by a black slave in Argentina when his owners tried to remove him from an image of the Virgin he’d protected during its transportation from Brazil to Argentina.

“El negro Manuel,” as he’s known in Pope Francis’s homeland, is currently in the process of being recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church.

His life story is at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lujan, next to a replica of the image he helped preserve which has been the official patroness of Argentina for over a century. The shrine is now visited by more than 5 million pilgrims each year.

Our Lady of Lujan is a 14-inch-tall terracotta image of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception that has been venerated in Argentina since its arrival in 1630. According to tradition, the image “chose” to stay in Lujan, some 40 miles northwest of Buenos Aires. After three days of traveling in a caravan towards the northern region of Argentina, the two oxen pulling the statue’s cart stopped moving near the Lujan river.

After much coaxing, it became evident that the cart would only move if the image was left behind, and the Portuguese rancher who was transporting the statue agreed. Manuel had been “gifted” to a rancher in Lujan, who allowed the slave to dedicate his life to taking care of the image, which he did until he died, in 1686.

When those who “inherited” Manuel tried to take him away from his life-long task in 1674, the people of Lujan came together and bought his freedom. During the process, he would simply say “I belong to Our Lady, and no one else.”

As per his own words, “My owner, the Virgin,” had promised that he would die on a Friday and be in heaven by Saturday. He did, in fact, die on a Friday.

An image available online of a side table in Francis’s quarters in the Vatican shows a small image of Manuel next to that of Our Lady of Lujan and a crucifix made with wood from one of the shipwrecked migrants’ boats found on the coast of the island of Lampedusa in southern Italy.

Inés San Martín, Aug 6, 2019

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