Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

The miracle of the snow

La Palma (1646)

In the fall of 1646the island of La Palma lived days of fear. The night of 30 September the Martin volcano (also called Tigalate or San Martín), and the lava began to descend by threatening the fields and villages of the south of the island.

The palms did what their faith asked them to do: go to their Mother. They took out Our Lady of the Snowsthe patron, of her sanctuary upon the city, and they brought her down, midnight begging procession to Santa Cruz de La Palma. For weeks he was prayed, with four novies in a row, asking for the fire to stop.

That prodigy was forever recorded in the soul of La Palma as "the miracle of the snow", and he joined the island even more with the advocation of the Snow - the whiteness that covers the fire, the tenderness of the Mother that extinguishes what threatens us -.

The story is transmitted as Pious tradition: what the chronicles of the 17th century document with certainty is the eruption and the begging processions; the prodigy of snow is counted and celebrated as Devocional resonancea sign of the Virgin's love for her people.