Venite Prandete

  THE ROMERIA DE EL ROCIO PENTECOST PILGRIMAGE IN ANDALUCIA A pilgrimage to the Hermitage of El Rocio Almonte, in Andalucia in honour of Our Lady of the Dew starts on the second day of Pentecost, finishing on Whitsunday. Our Lady of the Dew has been venerated there at least since the 13th century, although the current ornamentation of the statue dates from 1653. The pilgrims come on horseback and in gaily decorated wagons and the pilgrimage itself becomes a colourful and noisy celebration. On Pentecost Monday the Blessed Virgin is brought from the church and the hermandades, (brotherhoods) carry the statue - the statue is passed from one brotherhood to another. The Hermitage at the site dates from the late 13th century or early 14th century. The statue is theological – Our Lady is looking down at the Christ child – leading us to Christ. The statue is very early but it is dressed in later dressing (16th or 17th century). A site called Spanish Fiestas (from which some of the images a...

  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 ...