Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

The Virgin of Granada and the Master of Santiago

Llerena (Badjoz, Spain)

In the 13th century, the knights of the Order of Santiago They were moving along the lands of the current South Badajoz countryside, in the effort of the Reconquist. The tradition of Llerena remember that, 1241, the Virgin Mary appeared to don Rodrigo IñíguezMaster of the Order. The Lady was carrying the Child Jesus on one arm and, on the other, a open grenade: the fruit of the many seeds, which was interpreted as an announcement of the fruitful companies that God would make to flourish in that land that was recently won for faith.

The title of Our Lady of Granadawho over the centuries became patron of Llerena and the Marian heart of the sanctiaguist villa. The pomegranate remained forever in his hands and in his name, as a seal of the advocation.

It should be said, with honesty, that the account of the apparition of 1241 belongs to the Pious tradition transmitted by the memory of the Order and the people, not to a chronicle documented in detail. What is a firm story is the secular arraigo of this devotion: so much, that in 1966 the image was canonically crowned y nombrada alcaldesa perpetua de Llerena, señal de que aquel «sí» de los caballeros se ha prolongado en setecientos años de fe.

The pomegranate, with its countless seeds pressed under a single skin, is also a beautiful image of the Church: many children united in one Mother.