ARTICLE
THE VIRGIN OF CHARITY OF EL COBRE IN THE SOUL OF THE CUBAN PEOPLE.
BY: MONSEÑOR DIONISIO GARCÍA IBÁÑEZ
Text by Monsignor Dionisio García Ibáñez, Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba in the prologue to the book La Virgen de la Caridad de El Cobre in the soul of the Cuban people, (Ediciones Polymita, 2014).
The encounter of the Virgin with our people began, as Emilio Cueto says in his book, "without bombast, display of arms or flags, solemnities, speeches or protocol", when more than 400 years ago, according to the documents of the time, Two Indians and a small black slave found an image of him in the Bay of Nipe floating on a board that read "I am the Virgin of Charity." They looked at her with eyes of faith and welcomed her with appreciation and devotion. Thus began this growing relationship between Her, the mother of Jesus, and the Cuban people.
She was later taken to the town of El Cobre and, over the years, we began to call her Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre. She soon built a hermitage and later a sanctuary.
The pilgrimages began first of people from Santiago and Bayamese and, later, from all over Cuba, in such a way that, from 1861 to 1867, people from 132 towns in Cuba, from the western Pinar del Rio, to Baracoa. When Cuba timidly began to become aware of the nation, She also began to be a symbol of what is our own, of what she distinguished us from Spain. In the wars of independence she became a mambisa and later we consider her Our Patron. Currently the devotion to the Virgen de la Caridad annually attracts hundreds of thousands of faithful and visitors to the Sanctuary of El Cobre of her. These pilgrimages are not a thing of the past, they constitute an enhancement and a living tradition, which is recreated and renewed in each era, remaining faithful to its origins.
We like to dress the Virgin of Charity in blue with the three Cubans in the boat who, in some way, represent her people, and we also like to dress her in the golden clothes of a queen; we dare, in a confident tone, to call him "Cachita". Others identify her image with a saint from the Yoruba pantheon and others who, without having faith, recognize the beneficent presence of the Virgin of Charity throughout our history.
Each town has its own privileged way of feeling the love of God, the Cuban people discover it in the maternal love that we experience in the Virgin of Charity. That is why he feels summoned by this beautiful little image.
All the roads of Cuba lead to El Cobre: “where the beloved Virgin, always the same, although we have stopped being the same, awaits us to welcome, bless and unite all the children of Cuba under the mantle of her mother . At her feet we arrive knowing that nobody comes out the same as she arrived. There grievances are forgotten, artificial divisions that we raise with our own hands collapse, guilt is forgiven, hearts are shaken ”(Pastoral Letter of the Cuban episcopate“ Love awaits all, ”September 8, 1993).
Note: the photographs chosen for this work appear among the 1057 images published in the aforementioned book and the forthcoming work, “Beliefs in Cuba”, by the author Juan Nicolás Padrón, Ediciones Polymita, 2020.
The encounter of the Virgin with our people began, as Emilio Cueto says in his book, "without bombast, display of arms or flags, solemnities, speeches or protocol", when more than 400 years ago, according to the documents of the time, Two Indians and a small black slave found an image of him in the Bay of Nipe floating on a board that read "I am the Virgin of Charity." They looked at her with eyes of faith and welcomed her with appreciation and devotion. Thus began this growing relationship between Her, the mother of Jesus, and the Cuban people.
She was later taken to the town of El Cobre and, over the years, we began to call her Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre. She soon built a hermitage and later a sanctuary.
The pilgrimages began first of people from Santiago and Bayamese and, later, from all over Cuba, in such a way that, from 1861 to 1867, people from 132 towns in Cuba, from the western Pinar del Rio, to Baracoa. When Cuba timidly began to become aware of the nation, She also began to be a symbol of what is our own, of what she distinguished us from Spain. In the wars of independence she became a mambisa and later we consider her Our Patron. Currently the devotion to the Virgen de la Caridad annually attracts hundreds of thousands of faithful and visitors to the Sanctuary of El Cobre of her. These pilgrimages are not a thing of the past, they constitute an enhancement and a living tradition, which is recreated and renewed in each era, remaining faithful to its origins.
We like to dress the Virgin of Charity in blue with the three Cubans in the boat who, in some way, represent her people, and we also like to dress her in the golden clothes of a queen; we dare, in a confident tone, to call him "Cachita". Others identify her image with a saint from the Yoruba pantheon and others who, without having faith, recognize the beneficent presence of the Virgin of Charity throughout our history.
Each town has its own privileged way of feeling the love of God, the Cuban people discover it in the maternal love that we experience in the Virgin of Charity. That is why he feels summoned by this beautiful little image.
All the roads of Cuba lead to El Cobre: “where the beloved Virgin, always the same, although we have stopped being the same, awaits us to welcome, bless and unite all the children of Cuba under the mantle of her mother . At her feet we arrive knowing that nobody comes out the same as she arrived. There grievances are forgotten, artificial divisions that we raise with our own hands collapse, guilt is forgiven, hearts are shaken ”(Pastoral Letter of the Cuban episcopate“ Love awaits all, ”September 8, 1993).
Note: the photographs chosen for this work appear among the 1057 images published in the aforementioned book and the forthcoming work, “Beliefs in Cuba”, by the author Juan Nicolás Padrón, Ediciones Polymita, 2020.
