We Raise Our Hands and Pray for You

You have been present in the heart of the Largest of the Antilles for centuries and you are deep-rooted in the socio-cultural life of Santiago de Cuba. You have inspired numberless writers, singers, artists… and I would even dare to assert that all Cubans, wherever they are, have prayed for you to give them good health, protection and help.

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You became a legend over 400 years ago thanks to the popular imagination that hasn’t forgotten the way you appeared in Nipe Bay in front of Juan Moreno and Juan and Rodrigo de Hoyos. The holy image was floating on a board that read: I am the Virgin of Charity. A miraculous, brunette and celestial virgin carrying baby Jesus on her left arm and a gold cross on the right one.

Our Lady of Charity of Cobre, the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, Mambi Virgin, Oshún or Cachita, the name is not important to the millions of people that worship you every year at the Basilica of Cobre.

In this sacred place – where sex, race, age, nationality, believes are meaningless - pilgrims kneel, pray, promise and keep their promises. They light up candles, give flowers (specifically sunflowers), dedicate the most dissimilar victories and establish conversations in search of indulgence.

Upon walking away, the Sanctuary of Cobre seems to be left behind, but the Virgin is present everywhere thanks to the work of artisans, true works of art that perpetuate the image of the Holy Patron Saint.

On the book entitled The Virgin of Charity, a Symbol of Cuban Identity, Dr. Olga Portuondo, a historian of Santiago de Cuba, mentions other places in the world where Cachita is worshipped.

In 1961 an image of the Virgin visited the Miami Stadium, thus showing the yearning for the abandoned and still-loved land, and the need to strengthen and preserve the Cuban identity overseas.  

An image of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre was placed in Madrid in 1919, right at the church of Descalzas Reales monastery; it was later moved and is presently housed by a lateral chapel of Virgin of Carmen’s temple. Tenerife also has her image in Taganana and Seville’s basilica of Macarena has a mosaic representation of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre in one of its lateral chapels. Caracas also joins the list, as well as Cartagena de Indias where the sanctuary devoted to the Virgin of Candelaria features an image of our Lady of Charity of Cobre and the Three Johns;  Mexico and San Clemente, in Ecuador, also worship this virgin.

However, in our country, on May 10, 1916, Pope Benedict 15th proclaimed the Virgin as the Patron Saint of Cuba, but in the early 20th century there was no temple devoted to our Lady of Charity of Cobre in the Cuban capital city. The work carried out by veterans of the pro-independence wars and the determination of Mrs. América Arias, wife of José Miguel Gómez, the second president of the Republic, succeeded in getting the parochial temple of Our Lady of Guadalupe devoted to our Lady of Charity. Donations from Havana supported the construction of a tower, the vestibule and the clock that gave it the present look. The construction of the temple finished in 1927 and the image of the Patron Saint was put on the higher altar and the Guadeloupian’s was taken to one of the lateral chapels.  

Nowadays, when the whole Cuba and beyond kneel in front of you, we come to an end with the words of Monsignor Carlos Manuel de Céspedes García – Menocal included on the prologue of the above-mentioned book. These words pay tribute to Our Lady of Charity:

“The poet, like the prophet, sees before and beyond the rest of the people. Copper is a humble metal, it’s not silver, not gold, but it’s a necessary metal for alloys, to have them strengthened, firm. Salt, another humble material, is used to preserve meat and refine the taste of food. I wasn’t the one to discover such analogies. They were analyzed by Cintio Vitier and Fina García Marruz. For Christians, there is no such thing as chance, but Providence, care, God’s tenderness, which is not expressed in unprecedented ways. He is the only one with the power to organize the developments so that simple image of Maria, precisely Our Lady of Charity, of Love, could reach our Island, be found by some coppersmiths who were looking for salt, taken to Cobre, where it was finally home, the coziest home for all Cubans, no matter what their color is, the way the think or whether they have material resources or not. That’s the way it has been since that holy day back in the early 17th century. That’s the way it was, it is and it will be because that’s the way She is: humble salt that preserves us in our body and gives us the exact taste of life; humble copper that favors indispensable alloys in this people, pluralist and mixed in so many senses, to keep going, with resistant alloy, through the rivers of our history.”