Our Lady of Chiquinquira occupies a place in Colombia similar to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico

Spanish missionaries, including Dominican friars, arrived in Colombia early in the 16th century and began to spread the Catholic faith.

As the faith spread, so did the popularity of Mary. In 1562, a man named Antonio de Santana commissioned the painting of a portrait of the Virgin Mary with the help of Dominican Fray Andrés Jadraque.

Painter Alonso de Narváez completed the painting, which was 44 inches tall and 26 inches wide. He took advantage of the wide space by adding St. Anthony of Padua (in honor of Antonio de Santana) to the left of Mary–holding baby Jesus–and St. Andrew (in honor of Andrés Jadraque) to her right.

By 1574, as the Dominicans moved around and Andrés was reassigned, the painting was eventually left in a chapel, where it sustained damage from a leaky roof. Two years later, a man named Juan Alemán de Leguizamón found the painting in such poor condition that his wife used it in the kitchen to dry wheat.

When she died, the painting was lost until 1585.

María Ramos, who was married to Antonio de Santana’s brother, arrived in the Tunja area of Colombia before eventually staying with her sister-in-law, Catalina de Irlos, in Chiquinquira, where she discovered the badly damaged, partially destroyed painting.

Ramos, as Pope Francis described during a 2017 visit to Colombia, “had the courage and faith to put this blurred and torn fabric in a special place, restoring its lost dignity” by bringing it to a chapel at which she frequently prayed.

On December 25, 1586, as Ramos was about to leave the chapel, a 5-year-old indigenous boy named Miguel saw the painting shining brightly on the ground where Ramos had been praying. He cried out to his mother, Isabel, “Mother, look! The Mother of God is on the ground!”

Isabel stopped Ramos from leaving the church by telling her, “Look, look señora! Our Lady, the Mother of God, is standing up in your seat!”

The dilapidated painting, which previously hung in the chapel, was completely restored with beautiful, radiant color. It stood in the chapel, “reclining slightly in the air without anyone or anything supporting it.”

Word spread about the miraculous restoration of the painting, and local church authorities investigated the miracle. During this time, the “celestial light” that the painting emitted as a sign of the Virgin Mary’s patronage of the area.

In 1801, construction began on the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary of Chiquinquira. A few decades later, in 1829, Pope Pius VII declared Our Lady of Chiquinquira the patroness of Colombia.

Pope Pius X canonically crowned the image of Our Lady of the Rosary of Chiquinquira on July 9, 1919. In 2019, a jubilee year of celebration marked the 100-year anniversary of the Coronation of Our Lady of the Rosary of Chiquinquirá.

The painting is still enshrined at the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary of Chiquinquira. It is removed from the Basilica rarely for special occasions, including most recently on the occasion of Pope Francis’s 2017 visit to Colombia.

Source: www.hallow.com