THE PILGRIMAGE OF LA VIRGEN DE LA CABEZA, SPAIN; LAST WEEKEND OF APRIL

 THE PILGRIMAGE OF LA VIRGEN DE LA CABEZA, SPAIN

LAST WEEKEND OF APRIL

La Virgen de la Cabeza is a Black Madonna, whose cultus is centred at the Basilica of Nuestra Senora de la Cabeza, located in the Sierra of Andujar, in Spain.

Legend tells us that the image was given to Saint Euphrasius by Saint Peter and is said to have been the portrait that Saint Luke painted of the Blessed Virgin. Saint Euphrasius brought the image when he came to Spain in the first century AD.

In the 8th century, when Andujar was occupied by Moorish forces the image was hidden at the top of one of the highest and most inaccessible hills of the Sierra Morena, the Cerro del Cabezo.

Tradition has it that a shepherd named Juan Alonso de Rivas was watching over livestock belonging to a neighbour. Rivas was an elderly man, suffering from anchylosis and paralysis in his left arm. One night, in August 1227, Rivas began to see strange lights at the top of the Cerro del Cabezo. He also heard the incessant sounds of a bell. He climbed the hill and there, between two enormous blocks of granite, found a small image of the Virgin Mary. Rivas knelt before the image, which spoke to him, asking him to build a church at this spot. Rivas found that his left arm had been cured, and he went down to the city of Andújar to describe what had happened to him. (1)

The cultus spread and a sanctuary church was dedicated to her in 1631. Though partially destroyed in the Spanish Civil War, when rebel forces held it, it was subsequently rebuilt.

Together with Saint Euphrasius, Our Lady of Cabeza is a patron saint of Andujar, (declared by Pope Pius X in 1909).

The pilgrimage of the Virgen de la Cabeza is celebrated in Andujar on the last Sunday of the month of April. During this pilgrimage, the faithful visit the sanctuary on the hill of Cabezo. The Romeria, the pilgrimage, is considered one of the oldest in Spain.

(1) Wikipedia.