Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

"The apparition of Coromoto: the holy card in the chief's hand"

Guanare (Venezuela) (1651-1652)

Tradition places the origin of Our Lady of Coromoto in the lands of the Cospes Indians, near Guanare, in present-day Venezuela. Around 1651, while walking along a stream, Chief Coromoto and his wife saw a most beautiful Lady with a Child in her arms walking on the water. The Virgin spoke to him in his own language and asked him to go "where the white people are" to receive baptism, "the water on his head," so that he could go to heaven.

The chief approached an honest Spaniard, Juan Sánchez, and expressed his willingness to be baptized along with his people. However, disappointed by the treatment he received from some colonists, he resisted and retreated back into the jungle. On the night of September 8, 1652, in his hut on Monte de los Negros, the Virgin Mary appeared to him again, radiating a great light. Irritated, the chief wanted her to leave and tried to seize her to drive her away.

That tiny relic, measuring just 2.5 by 2 centimeters, is the one venerated today in the Minor Basilica and National Shrine of Coromoto, built on the site of the second apparition. Tradition adds that the chieftain, some time later, suffered a snake bite and died a Christian death after requesting baptism, although there is no precise documentation regarding the dates and details of his death.

It is important to separate devotion from history. The dialogue in the indigenous language, the physical manner in which the image was imprinted, and the chief's eventual conversion are all part of hagiographic tradition; the same can be said of the miraculous waters of the stream, which devotional chronicles describe as remaining fresh for months. The cult in Guanare, dating back to the 17th century, is better documented, as is the ancient veneration of the small image on bark and its ecclesiastical recognition: Pius XII declared her Patroness of Venezuela in 1944, her canonical coronation took place in 1952, John Paul II inaugurated the National Shrine in 1996, and in 2011 she was declared the principal patroness of the Archdiocese of Caracas.