![]() ![]() Attendees took turns leading the recitation of each rosary mystery.Īfter the rosary, everyone gathered around a conical pile of wooden pieces. But after the bell was rung, about two dozen faithful started the prayer. This year’s “Candelaria” (fiery) feast - as the feast of the Presentation of the Lord is known in Spanish-speaking countries - at the shrine was threatened by drizzle. The shrine hosts a rosary every Sunday evening, with attendance peaking at 200. ![]() “We are not a church and do not pretend to be one, but we are here as a place for all who come looking for Mary, mother of God, and of course the guiding light of Jesus.” “We have Mary, Queen of the World as our central devotion because it includes all others,” said Padilla. A bright yellow, Spanish mission-style outer wall, gate and bell housing, rounds the perimeter of the site. The focal point of the layout features an elevated concrete platform with overhead steel cover and a statue of Mary on the back wall. ![]() The site is set in his family backyard, against a steep karst mountainside dotted with porous white boulders on which small niches have been built to house a variety of saints’ statutes. “From the beginning, it evolved slowly, but for the past two years it has improved rapidly.” “I was 15 when I started this place,” Padilla told Catholic News Service. For the past 21 years, Candlemas has been celebrated here exactly in the same centuries-old fashion as part of a popular Marian devotion. That is the case of 36-year-old Jose Padilla, a former seminarian who has been “a Marian devotee since age 6.” He runs a little family shrine tucked high up in the hills south of San German, a colonial city in southwestern Puerto Rico. They could at least symbolise giant candles…with a bit of imagination.SAN GERMAN, Puerto Rico (CNS) - Although environmental restrictions have put a damp on Catholic Candlemas celebrations in many countries, some devotees in rural Puerto Rico still hold traditional ceremonies centered on bonfires. How some of these local variations are related to the original celebration is anyone’s guess, especially the one in Madrid. Homemade chorizo sausages are cooked on huge bonfires. In A Pobra de Trives, Ourense, sausages are the order of the day. In Menasalbas, Toledo, there is a horseback parade in which 11 riders and their 22 serfs carry torches through the town.Īlmonacid del Marquesado, Cuenca, is the scene of a ‘devil’ parade, hundreds of gaily clad devils cavorting around the streets. In Málaga, it is a fairly standard procession with a reenactment of the presentation of Jesus at the Temple. At the end of the day in the town plaza, the bull is ceremonially ‘killed’ and sangria is passed around to symbolise the blood of the bull. In Madrid, the streets fill with clowns dressed as Andalucían farmers (cheeky lot) who bring out young bulls (vaquillas) consisting of a wooden frame with two horns.īullfighters, to use the term exceedingly loosely, dressed in multicolored silk trousers, perform mock bullfights around town all day long. These vary from simple candlelit parades to bizarre events involving wooden bulls. It is a Christian celebration dating back to the 8th Century and in pagan folklore it denoted the middle of winter.Īlthough the basic concept of ‘purification’ is the foundation of the fiesta, it is celebrated in many different ways in Spain. The feast honours the day Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem forty days after his birth to perform the required sacrifice of purification. The Fiesta de la Candelaria takes place on February 2nd and is celebrated in many towns and villages throughout Spain. ![]()
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