20th Jul - OUR MOTHER OF ZOCUECA (SPAIN)

 Around 1150, Mozarabic Christians built a rude Chapel near the Rumblar River, in southern Spain, at Zocueca. When Alfonso VII reconquered the area in 1155, 

    people gave thanks to the Virgin at the shrine. In the 1400s it was rebuilt, and from this period the graceful, standing Gothic statue of the Mother and Child seems to date, 

    although tradition holds it to be older than the first Chapel. During the cholera epidemic of 1681, the people vowed to hold an annual feast in honour of the Virgin, 

    preceded by a day of fasting, if she would save them. The promise has been kept on August 5 ever since. The Chapel was redecorated in Baroque style in the 1700s. 

    In 1808, people again thanked the Virgin of Zocueca for her help during the Battle of Bailén, the first Spanish victory against Napoleon. Our Mother of Zocueca was named in 1925, 

    reigning Alfonso XIII, "Captain General", wearing on his chest the band and Grand Cross of San Fernando that because of such deed was granted to General Castanos, 

    to while it is remembered for the defeated side with a sense of friendship and brotherhood between nations of the same cultural and economic environment. Men carry the statue, 

    bristling with decorations, on their shoulders from its usual home in the Church of the Incarnation in Bailen to the sanctuary four miles distant, 

    where overnight vigil is kept before a sunrise Mass.




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