Saint of the day August 2: Our Lady of the Angels. Catholic Saints

Every August 2, Our Lady of the Angels, patron saint of Costa Rica, is celebrated.

Although it is true that the origins of this Marian dedication come from Europe, the devotion to the Virgin of the Angels can be considered typical of America for several centuries, since the times of the Spanish conquest. Although her presence and her devotees are distributed throughout the Continent, her roots in Costa Rica have become such that the Congress of the Republic of that country officially declared her “Patron Saint of Costa Rica” in 1824.

Subsequently, this patronage has been ratified twice by the Costa Rican parliament: in 1924 and 2002. Two years after the first ratification, Pope Pius XI granted Our Lady of the Angels the Pontifical Coronation (1926).

This year, 2024, the 389th anniversary of the discovery, in Cartago (Costa Rica), of the statuette that awakened the very special love that Costa Ricans profess for the Mother of God is celebrated.

The picture

The original image of the Patroness of Costa Rica is small (about 20 cm) and is made of volcanic rock, graphite and jade. It is black and that is why its devotees affectionately call it ‘La Negrita’.

The combination of minerals in the statuette will always be a source of curiosity: according to scientific sources, if the historical period in which the image was found is taken into account, there is no way to precisely explain the presence of graphite in it (this material was not known in America) and, at the same time, from volcanic rock (practically unused in Europe at that time). For this reason, ‘la Negrita’ can be considered a symbol of miscegenation, in which elements of two worlds that were beginning to know each other are fused. She is an expression of American unity that was born thanks to faith.

According to tradition, on August 2, 1635, a woman whom history has called ‘Juana Pereira’, found on a rock an image of the Virgin Mary with the Child Jesus in her arms. The place of discovery was called Puebla de los Pardos (an allusion to the black population) in the area of ​​Cartago (Costa Rica), where the Basilica dedicated to this dedication is today.

Popular history states that that woman, after the discovery, moved the image to her house, and the next day she found it in the same place where she took it. At first she thought it was a second image, but her surprise was great when she realized that the place where she had left the statuette the day before was empty. She put the image back in a safe place, and the same thing happened on the third day. Everything indicated that the image was the same and that for some mysterious reason alone she returned to the same place.

Juana then decided to take her to the parish near her house, at the request of the local priest. However, the image always disappeared from the place where she was taken and appeared again on the rock where she was first found. The locals interpreted this as a sign that the Mother of God wanted a temple to be built there.

First a hermitage was built and later, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Basilica. Over the years, veneration of the holy image spread throughout the country. People began to call her Our Lady of the Angels, for having appeared on the day when the Church (particularly the Franciscans) celebrates the Virgin under that title.

In the soul of Costa Rica

Since the end of the 19th century, thousands of people have made a pilgrimage once a year to the sanctuary of the Virgin of the Angels. The faithful accompany the transfer of the image from there to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, where it remains until the beginning of September, when it is returned to the basilica in a new transfer. Two to three million pilgrims, national and foreign, participate in both pilgrimages.

Today, the central day of the celebrations, the echoes of the letter sent by Pope Benedict XVI in honor of Our Lady of the Angels to all the Catholics of Costa Rica are felt – a gesture that occurred within the framework of the closing of the Year Jubilee 2011-. In the letter the Pope stated that this Marian devotion “is a sacred sign of the Christian religion and faith in Latin America.”

The Pope also recalled that “there are innumerable sacred signs capable of spreading the Christian religion on earth and increasing the devotion of the faithful,” and among these testimonies “there is also the image of Our Lady of the Angels preserved in the Basilica of Carthage”.

Tracing the origins: Saint Francis of Assisi and the Virgin of the Angels

In addition to the Basilica of Carthage, there are many other basilicas dedicated to this Marian devotion in the world, especially in Italy, where three of the most important are located. The main one is located in the city of Assisi, where the Virgin appeared to Saint Francis in 1208, the year in which she “received her vocation.”

In 1216, in a vision, Saint Francis asked the Lord, who was next to the Virgin and her angels, to grant an indulgence to all who visited the Church dedicated to the Virgin under the invocation of Mary of the Angels.

The Lord accepted and ordered the saint to go to Perugia, to obtain the desired favor from the Pope. This indulgence is known as “the indulgence of the Porziuncula” or “the Forgiveness of Assisi”, and was approved by Pope Honorius III in the 13th century.