Our Lady of Candelaria

Legend and appearance According to a legend recorded by Alonso de Espinosa in 1594, a statue of the Virgin Mary, bearing a child in one hand and a green candle in the other (hence "Candelaria"), was discovered on the beach of Chimisay (Güímar) by two Guanche goatherds in 1392. This was before the Castilian conquest of the island of Tenerife (the island was not fully conquered until 1496).

One of the shepherds tried to throw a stone at the statue, but his arm became paralyzed; the other tried to stab the statue with a knife but ended up stabbing himself. The statue was taken by the local guanche mencey to the cueva de Chinguaro.

Later, Antón, a Guanche who had been enslaved and converted to Christianity by the Castilians, returned to Tenerife and recognized the statue as that of the Virgin Mary. He told the mencey of his conversion and the statue was thus venerated by the Guanches, who moved it to the cave of Achbinico (also known as San Blas – "Saint Blaise"). However, the statue was stolen and taken away to Lanzarote. It was later returned to Tenerife after various events, including an outbreak of the plague, occurred on Lanzarote. At first, the autochthons identified the statue with their goddess Chaxiraxi (the mother of the gods), but later the Christian conquerors imposed the idea that the statue was that of the Virgin Mary.

After the appearance of the Virgin and its iconographic identification with this biblical event, the festival began to be celebrated with a Marian character in 1497, when the conqueror Alonso Fernández de Lugo, celebrated the first Candlemas festival dedicated especially to the Virgin Mary, coinciding with the Feast of Purification, on February 2. Before the conquest of Tenerife, the Guanche aborigines celebrated a festivity around the image of the Virgin during the Beñesmen festival in the month of August. This was the harvest party, which marked the beginning of the year. Currently, the feast of the Virgin of Candelaria in Canary Islands is celebrated in addition to February 2 also on August 15, the day of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in the Catholic calendar. For some historians, the celebrations celebrated in honor of the Virgin during the month of August are a syncretized reminiscence of the ancient feasts of the Beñesmen.

Veneration The first Mass was celebrated at Achbinico on February 2, 1497, and the Adelantado Alonso Fernández de Lugo ordered the construction of a hermitage there, but it was not built until 1526, during the rule of Pedro Fernández de Lugo. This was the site of the Basilica of Our Lady of Candelaria. The basilica was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in the 19th century. The statue itself was lost when a tsunami carried it out to sea in 1826; the present statue is a copy by Fernando Estévez. The statue of the Virgin is dressed in rich robes of different colors and jewels.

She was declared patroness of the Canary Islands in 1599, by Clement VIII (and principal patroness in 1867 by Pope Pius IX). The Virgin of Candelaria is widely petitioned to pray for the protection against epidemics, plagues, droughts and volcanic eruptions of Mount Teide and other volcanoes, in a manner similar to the invocation of St. Januarius of Naples to pray for the end of the eruptions of Vesuvius and of St. Agatha of Catania against eruptions of Mount Etna in Sicily.

Between October 1964 and January 1965, the Diocese of Tenerife conducted the largest pilgrimage in the history of the Canary Islands. This time, the statue of the Virgin was walked across the towns, cities and municipalities of the island of Tenerife for the first time in history. In the basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth (Israel) is a mosaic of the Virgin of Candelaria, patron saint of the Canary Islands, along with those of other Marian devotions famous in Spain.

Every year on February 2 and August 15 is celebrated a big party in honor of the Virgin. These days there are thousands of pilgrims and tourists coming to Candelaria from all points of the Canary Islands and other parts of Spain and the world. The feast day is marked by a solemn procession and a religious ceremony, although its most famous component is a re-enactment of the discovery of the statue, with locals dressing up as guanche natives.

In addition to that, every seven years the image of the Virgin of Candelaria is transferred for two weeks to the cities of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (capital of the island) and San Cristóbal de La Laguna (seat of the Diocese of Tenerife) alternating every seven years between the two cites: in 2002 it was Santa Cruz and in 2009 La Laguna and so to successively.

In the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines, the Virgin of Candelaria is venerated as Our Lady of Candles (Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria). Notable of many images in various places where she is a patroness of, the one enshrined in Jaro Cathedral (National Shrine of the Our Lady of Candles) as "Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Jaro" in Iloilo City is visited by pilgrims from around the country and abroad annually every February 2, her feast day. In 1981 Pope John Paul II during his visit canonically crowned the image without a papal legate, the first marian image to receive such stature in the Philippines and Asia.

In the Philippines, she is the patroness of Western Visayas and Negros Occidental, and a white version with a child is found in the Jaro Cathedral in Iloilo: it is either of local heavenly origin since its discovery was miraculous being found floating in a river, changing in weight and growing in size or it may be brought by the Spanish immigrants during Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines. Her feast is celebrated every February 2 with pageantry where the Fiesta queen is chosen from prominent Spanish-Filipino families in the district of Jaro. The image and statue is located atop the cathedral and is the only Marian statue crowned by pope and saint in the Philippines, during the visit of Pope John Paul II.

Strange letters on the original carving of the Virgin In the carved drapery of the Virgin of Candelaria original there were strange sequences of letters whose meaning is still unknown. These were: • Band on the neck: ETIEPFSEPMERI • In the belt: NARMPRLMOTARE • On the left sleeve, by the candle: LPVRINENIPEPNEIFANT • In the mantle, in the right arm: OLM INRANFR IAEBNPFM RFVEN NVINAPIMLIFINVIPI NIPIAN • At the edge of the left hand: FVPMIRNA ENVPMTI EPNMPIR VRVIVINRN APVIMFRI PIVNIAN NTRHN • At the bottom of the robe: EAFM IRENINI FMEAREI • On the back of the cape: NBIMEI ANNEIPERFMIVIFVF There have been numerous theories proposed regarding possible meanings over the years, including that the evangelizing friars of the Canary Islands wrote devotions to the Virgin Mary in the context of the original (Insular-Amazigh) Guanche language, while attempting to transcribe them into Roman letters.