Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

"Have mercy, have mercy!": the discovery of the patron saint of Almendralejo

Almendralejo (Badajoz, Spain)

En la Land of Barros, back in the year 1507, un labrador de Almond He worked the land with his azada. Suddenly - tradition tells - he heard a voice coming out of the ground, crying, "Pity, mercy!. "Collected, kept digging carefully and found a image of the Virgin Mary. He took her to the parish priest, and from that finding was born devotion to Our Lady of Mercywho over the centuries would become a patron of the city.

Es uno de esos relatos de «imagen hallada» tan frecuentes en los pueblos de España: el hallazgo guiado por una voz, una luz o un animal, y el nombre de la advocación brotando del propio prodigio. La crítica histórica los clasifica como Pious traditionFor there is no coethanite documentation; but they express a deep truth: it is the Virgin who comes to meet her children, and not the other way around.

What is documented is the strength of that devotion: the Pity is Patron of Almendralejo since 1657, was named alcaldesa perpetua en 1987 y canonically crowned on 19 May 2007. Each year, rickshaw From her sanctuary to the people fills the streets of people who repeat, at the bottom, that same cry of the farmer: a request for mercy put into the hands of the Mother.