Our Lady of the Angels
This week’s Saint the Week is another awesome Marian inspired devotion. Our Lady of the Angels, also called La Negrita, (the Black Madonna), because of the dark color of the small stone statue of the Blessed Mother holding the baby Jesus in her arms, that inspired the devotion. In 1635, a Costa Rican woman named Juana Pereira was walking along a path and found the tiny statue, which is only about 3 inches tall, sitting on top of a rock next to the path. She took the statue home and thought she lost it, only to find it in the same place on the path the following day. This happened a total of three times before she shared the story with her local priest. The priest took the statue into the church and locked it away, but you guessed it, it ended up back on the same rock beside the path the next day. Church officials determined that the Blessed Mother wanted a shrine built on the spot where the statue was repeatedly found.
In 1639, the shrine of Our Lady of the Angels was built in Cartego, Costa Rica and declared a basilica by Pope Pius XI. Pilgrims travel to the shrine throughout the year but August 2nd, the feast day of Our Lady of the Angels, is the most popular time. People from all over the world participate in a pilgrimage from San Jose to the shrine, a distance of about 13.5 miles. Many of the pilgrims complete the last several hundred meters on their knees. Many miraculous healings have been attributed to the tiny statue which was crowned, placed in a golden case and still remains on display in the shrine.
Feast Day: August 2nd
Patroness of: Costa Rica
Prayer to Our Lady Queen of Angels
August Queen of the Heavens, Heavenly Sovereign of the Angels, thou who from the beginning received from God the power and the mission to crush the head of Satan, we humbly beseech thee, to send thy holy Legions so that, under thy command and through thy power, they may pursue the demons, combat them everywhere, suppress their boldness and drive them back into the abyss.
“Who is like unto God?”
O good and tender Mother, thou shalt always be our love and our hope!
O Divine Mother, send thy holy Angels to defend us and drive far away from us the cruel enemy.
Holy Angels and Archangels, defend us and guard us. Amen.
(Be sure to click this link to read about the Heavenly origin of this prayer to our Lady of the Angels).
Our Lady Queen of the Angels, pray for us!
1 comments
Interesting story of Our Lady of the Angels. It is pretty cool that the statue transported back to the same spot, denoting the place for a basilica.
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