Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

The Virgin who keeps Baños from the volcano

Baños de Agua Santa, Tungsten, Ecuador (colonial period)

In the Ecuadorian city of Baños de Agua Santa, famous for its thermal waters, it venerates Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Agua Santa. The city lives in the shadow of the Tungurahua volcano, and from there the most affectionate of this devotion is born: the people invoke it as a protector in front of the ash, the lava and the collapse.

It is a verifiable fact that the Tungsten has had several eruptive phases, especially since the late 1990s, which forced evacuations and damaged nearby fields and populations. It is also clear that Baños has suffered serious threats and, so far, has avoided the total destruction that some geological studies considered possible. What belongs to faith - the miraculous intervention of the Virgin - is not historically demonstrable; but the trust of the people and their public prayer are documented in parish chronicles and in the local press.

The most beautiful testimony is the devotees. The sanctuary retains a huge collection of votive paintings, plates and photographs that narrate, with names, dates and circumstances, how families of Baños and other regions are grateful to have come out alive of eruptions and falls of ash, of accidents on mountain roads, of overflows and collapses. Many are dated and signed: they are at least written testimony of the faith and gratitude of the devotees. The Church welcomes them as an expression of popular piety, without making a case-by-case statement about the miraculous.

Here the link with the Rosary is not added: it is in the same name, Our Lady of the Rosary of Holy Water. The prayer of the Holy Rosary, the ninth Marian and the processions with the image while praying - especially in times of danger - are an essential part of the life of the sanctuary. In Baños, devotion to the Rosary and confidence in Mary's maternal protection against the risks of the territory are an inseparable whole.

The editor's prudence is appropriate: it does not contain an exact and documented date of the first entronization of the image with the title of the Rosary; the precise chronology of the beginning of the cult does not contain, although its roots go back to colonial times.