Our Lady of the Amparo of Chinavita

Marian devotion

Totals. Our Lady of the Amparo is the Marian advocation linked to the sanctuary and the parish of Chinavita, in the Colombian department of Boyacá. The sources consulted include a local Catholic cult and a parish history; the traditional account of the finding of the image is presented as a tradition, not as an approved apparition.

Where is he?

The sanctuary is located in Chinavita, municipality of the province of Neira, Boyacá. The coordinate of the map is that of the locality obtained in GeoNames, not an inner point of the temple: 5.1672, -73.3682. The precision is marked as locality because the cross-checked cartographic sources did not deliver an unequivocal geometry of the building.

Documented history

The document of territorial order consulted describes the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Amparo as a place to which pilgrims come and relates the history of the temple to the parish of Chinavita. The first mass of the parish of Our Lady Mary Most Holy of the Amparo and San Francisco de Paula is located on February 16, 1823, in a chapel that then experienced several transformations until it became the present sanctuary. These data describe the institutional and architectural history of the place; they are not in themselves a judgment of the supernatural origin of devotion.

The parliamentary and municipal documentation consulted confirms Chinavita's identity as a Boyacense municipality and serves to place the territorial context of the advocation. The cartographic source of the town is the description of GeoNames 3686569.

Tradition

Local tradition tells that the butler of parish goods was looking for an image for Chinavita. On returning saddened, he would have found a Franciscan friar in the place called El Sisga. El fraile le habría indicado que la imagación de la Virgen del Amparo estaba en Tunja, en el convento de San Francisco, entro de un canutillo de guadua placed behind the main altar. This account belongs to the devotional memory transmitted by the sanctuary and by local sources.

Legend and causation

The continuation of the story - the identification of the image and its arrival in Chinavita - is preserved as a traditional narrative. No episcopal file has been located in this lot that declares the finding supernatural and no document of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith that approves an apparition. This is why it does not appear as approved apparition, recognized miracle or private revelation.

Ecclesial State

It is a public Catholic cult and the existence of the parish sanctuary. In this fact, "permitted cult" describes this local ecclesial reality; it does not amount to the supernatural approval of the traditional account.

Anecdotes and stories

The history of the sanctuary shows how a local parish became a place of pilgrimage. The memory of the butler, the friar and the guadua basket remains part of Chinavita's religious identity, but is kept separate from the data that do appear in administrative and property documents.

Prayer

Holy Mary, Mother of the Amparo, pray for those who pilgrim with faith and for the families of Chinavita. Teach us to approach Jesus Christ with humility, to serve the needy and to live Christian hope. Amen.

Sources

• Chinavita Territorial Management Scheme, institutional source consulted for the sanctuary and parish history.
• House of Representatives: Chinavita, municipal context.
• GeoNames 3686569, town and coordinate.
• Local source of the sanctuaryused only to identify the tradition and differentiated from the documented history.