Our Lady of the Conception

Coronado · San Cristóbal de La Laguna (Tenerife) · Parish Matrix de la Concepción

En San Cristóbal de La Laguna, World Heritage, venerates Our Lady of the Conception in the parent parish of his name, the oldest temple of Tenerife. The city's patron and canonically crowned in 1954, it is one of the most profound Marian devotions on the island.

Main data

History and origin

The current image was sculpted by the great canary imaginary Fernando Estévez in 1847; it is a size of candlestick, of natural size, made to be dressed. He replaced a primitive image, before which Marian acts were held prior to the proclamation of the Dogma of the Immaculate. The co-fradia It dates back to 1532 and in 1757 was added to the Brotherhood of the Basilica of San Lorenzo Extramuros of Rome. Today it is the custody of the Pontifical, Imperial, Real and Venerable Brotherhood of the Purple Conception.

Patroness and mayor of the city

The lagoon devotion named the Conception "Mayor Honoraria and Perpetua" of the city in 1954, and compadrona de La Laguna next to St. John the Baptist, as well as patron of the local Red Cross. The image shows the immaculate attributes: the half-moon at its feet, the twelve-star crown and the blue celestial mantle.

The feast and procession of the candelas

Su festividad es el 8 December, solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. The day before, the 7 December, the emotive is celebrated procession of candelas or torches: the mayor places the command of the city at the base of the paths of the Virgin and, after the procession, is returned to him, in a gesture expressed by Mary's spiritual lordship over La Laguna.

The canonical coronation

El 5 December 1954in the square of the Christ of La Laguna, Bishop Domingo Pérez Cáceres canonically crowned the image by virtue of a bull of the Pope Pius XII. It was the second Marian image canonically crowned in Tenerife, after the Virgin of Candelaria (1889).

Favors and popular devotion

Signs of lagoon fidelity to the Conception are translated into promises, pilgrimages and favors that the faithful thank for their intercession, kept in the devout memory of the city and not in formal ecclesiastical declaration.

The Immaculate and the Rosary

In the Conception, the Laguna celebrates the Mother preserved from all sin, the aurora of salvation. She goes with him. Holy Rosarythe prayer with which Mary, Immaculate and Mother, leads us from the hand to her Son.