Our Lady of the Rosary of the Stone of Medellin

Marian devotion

Where is he?

Our Lady of the Rosary of the Stone, also known as the Virgin of the Stone, is venerated in the Chapel of the Rosary, in the sector of Belén-Rincón de Medellín, Antioquia. OpenStreetMap identifies the chapel by name and classifies it as a place of Catholic worship; this is why a building coordinate is used here. The point points to the cartographed chapel, not the original place of the break that appears in tradition.

Invocation should be read as a local devotion linked to a stone in which some faithful perceived a Marian form. The revised sources for this lot do not contain a decree of the Church declaring the phenomenon supernatural.

Documented history

The page of the Educational Institution Capilla del Rosario, attached to the Ministry of Education of Medellín, reproduces a memory of the community and refers to a title of property registered in a notary of Medellín on 9 October 1957. This document retains a account according to which the beginning of the veneration dates back to 1857. What is documented is the existence of that record and the continuity of devotion; the perception of an image in the stone belongs to the story transmitted.

The same memory tells that the stone would have been collected in a break and that, after passing through the hands of a woman and of Domingo Gutiérrez, it was shown to the parish priest of Bethlehem. He then placed a small grotto in the place that became known as the Chapel of the Rosary. The parish dedicated to the advocation maintains its own page and identifies with the Archdiocese of Medellin.

The territorial report consulted describes the Chapel of the Rosary as the core of veneration around which the settlement of the sector was developed. This data helps explain the relationship between temple, neighborhood and Marian memory. It is not claimed that the stone has changed physically, that the face has become miraculously more clear, or that every favor attributed to the Virgin is a recognized miracle.

Tradition

The tradition reports that a woman who needed to pay a debt handed over the stone, and that her recipient distinguished a beautiful shadow in it. The story has been preserved in the local memory and on the site of the institution of the neighborhood. It is presented as a tradition because the source transmits the story, but does not offer a contemporary file that allows to check every step of the 1857 scene.

The pilgrimage and the veneration of the stone belong to the religious life of the community. To ask for Mary's intercession means to come to her as the Mother of Jesus and servant of God. It does not mean adoring it: worship belongs only to God.

Legend

The expression "apparition" appears on local devotional pages, but no episcopal pronunciation has been located that approves a Marian apparition on the stone. That is why the story is kept in the section of tradition and legend, with the clear limit that the chapel and devotion are documented, while the supernatural origin is not approved.

Ecclesial State

The state indicated is permitted veneration in the sense of a documented devotion and a local Catholic chapel. The label does not amount to an approval of the apparition or the miracle. The verified sources prove the existence of the place of worship and devotional memory; they do not allow a formal recognition of the phenomenon by the Archdiocese of Medellin, the Holy See or the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Anecdotes and stories

The 1957 memory relates the name of the chapel to that of the educational institution of the neighborhood. It is a sign of how a devotion can shape the identity of a place: the school conserves the name, the chapel conserves the stone and the community maintains the pilgrimage.

The coordinate comes from the current chapel identified in OSM, not from the break mentioned in the tradition. This difference matters: maps should help to find a real site and not present as exact a point that sources do not set.

Prayer

Holy Mary of the Rosary, Mother of Jesus, intercedes before God for the families of Belén- Rincón and for those who seek comfort in the Chapel of the Rosary. Give us caution to distinguish history from tradition, respect for truth and a faith that is translated into service. Amen.

Sources

• Educational Institution Chapel of the Rosary, local memory of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Stone.
• Parish Our Lady of the Rosary of the Stone, pastoral information of the place.
• OpenStreetMap way 786314693: Our Virgin Chapel of the Virgin Rosary of the Stone.