Allocution, Sunday, August 30, 2020
Thanks to all those who make this radio broadcast possible on Sunday, August 30, the day of the beginning of the Novena to Our Lady of Charity, Mother and Patroness of Cuba, we turn to Her praying:
We take refuge under your protection, Holy Mother of God, do not discard the supplications that we address to you in our needs, but rather, deliver us from all danger, glorious and blessed Virgin.
The Word of God tells us who the Virgin Mary of Charity is:
An Israelite girl, extraordinarily religious, pure and fulfilling her duties. She received a warning from God: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with your God and you will conceive and give birth to a son, whom you will name Jesus.”
This Jesus is the Messiah-Savior, awaited by God’s people for centuries. He is the “son of God made man”, and announced by the Prophets.
Mary, aware that her older cousin Elizabeth was pregnant with the man who was to become John the Baptist, hurriedly left for Ain Karin to help her.
Her cousin Elizabeth received her like this: “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, blessed are you who have believed that what was told to you from the Lord will be fulfilled.”
Mary then praised and thanked God with a song we call The Magnificat, because that is how it begins in Latin.
The Virgin saw her Son born in a very poor way, in a cave. He took him to the Temple to present him to the Lord God. There an old man, Simeon, filled with joy at seeing the child, exclaimed:
Now, Lord, you can let your servant go in peace, according to your word, because my eyes have seen the salvation that you have prepared before all people. Light to illuminate the nations and glory to your people.
(Song)
With the pain and joy of every mother, but peacefully accepting the will of God, Mary one day saw that Jesus was leaving her side.
Jesus went to fulfill his mission: Announce the Kingdom of God. One day, referring to Mary, He said:
“My mother and my brothers are those who hear the Word and do it.”
When Mary was witnessing the death of her Son on the Cross, He said to her, showing the disciple John: “Woman, behold your Son.”
In that disciple of Christ all the men of humanity were represented. From that moment on, the Virgin Mary is our Mother.
The Virgin learned the wonderful news that Christ had risen. He had come back to live forever to bring us all to God the Father.
The Virgin Mary is next to God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, and from there she intercedes for us so that we follow Christ in this life and then, at the end of time, we can join her and all the saints to sing the eternal praises to God.
She continues to play her role as Mother, being present in many towns in a thousand ways. In Cuba we venerate her under the title of the Virgin Mary of Charity.
What is Charity? The apostle Saint Paul describes it to us like this: 1 Corinthians, chapter 13.
…
This is how the Virgin lived. This is how you who are his devotee should live. True devotion leads to imitation. To be a son is to look like Her. The son looks like his mother…
(Song)
Juan Moreno tells us what he experienced in Nipe Bay in 1612:
In the place of the Mines of Santiago del Prado, on April 1, 1687, Mr. Bonifacio Juan Ortiz Montajo de la Cámara, Rector Priest of the parish of this place… made Captain Juan Moreno appear, from whom he was sworn in by God and a Cross, according to the form of Law, promised to tell the Truth of what he knew and was asked.
He was asked the following:
-What is your name, where are you from? What age, status and occupation are you?
My name is Juan Moreno, black, slave, native of this place and captain of this place, and I am eighty-five years old and married.
Asked, he declared what he knows in relation to the appearance of Our Lady of Charity and Remedies, he said:
When he was ten years old, he went as a rancher to Nipe Bay, which is on the northern side of this Island, in the company of Juan and Rodrigo de Hoyos, native Indians, who were going to collect salt and having ranched in Cayo Francés, which is in the middle of this Nipe Bay, and then in good weather went to the salt flats, and one morning the sea was calm, they left said Cayo Francés, before the sun rose, the two of them, Juan and Rodrigo de Hoyos and the declarant.
Embarking in a canoe for the said saline and leaving Cayo Francés, I saw a white thing on the foam of the water, which we could not distinguish what it could be and as we got closer it seemed like birds and dry branches, but said Indians said it looked like a girl. And in these speeches, when we arrived, we recognized and saw the image of the Blessed Virgin, with the Child Jesus in her arms, on a small tablet, and on said tablet, some large letters, which the said Rodrigo de Hoyos read to them and they said : I AM THE VIRGIN OF CHARITY.
And since their garments were garments, we marveled that they were not wet.
In this, full of joy and happiness, taking only three thirds of salt, we came to the Hato de Barajagua, where Miguel Galán, the mayor of said herd, was and they told him what was happening, having found the Lady of Charity, and The said mayor, very happy, and without delay, then sent Antonio Angola with the news of said Lady to Captain Don Francisco Sánchez de Moya, who administered the mines of said place, so that he could arrange what had to be done and while the news they put in the dwelling house of said herd, an Altar of boards and on it the Blessed Virgin with a light on.
The said Captain Don Francisco Sánchez de Moya sent orders to the said mayor Miguel Galán to see a house of said herd and to place the Holy Virgin of Charity there, and to always have it with light. And for this he sent her a copper lamp, the house was made, covered with guano, surrounded by palm boards, and this divine Lady was placed on her Altar.
(Testimony of Juan Moreno, eyewitness of the discovery, Archivo de Indias, Spain).
(Song)
Who asked Pope Benedict XV that the Virgin of Charity be Mother and Patroness of Cuba?
To His Holiness Benedict XV.
HOLY FATHER:
Those who subscribe, children of the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, humbly state to His Holiness:
That some are members and others sympathizers of the Cuban Liberation Army, a title that constitutes the symbol of our greatest glory, because it summarizes in it the supreme good of the Freedom and Independence of our Homeland; that along with that title, we hold another, which is that of belonging to the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, in whose bosom we were born, under the protection of its precepts we live and in accordance with them we want to cease to exist; and these two titles mean that today, gathered in the Villa del Cobre, where the Sanctuary of the BLESSED VIRGIN of CHARITY is located, and reverently prostrated before her altar, we agree to go to His Holiness to realize the most beautiful of our hopes and the most just of the aspirations of the Cuban soul, declaring the Most Holy Virgin of Charity of Cobre as Patroness of our young Republic, and as a precept for Cuba, the day that bears her Holy name, September 8th.
Neither the hazards of war nor the efforts to save our subsistence could extinguish the faith and love that our Catholic people profess for that venerated Virgin; and on the contrary, in the heat of combat and in the greatest vicissitudes of life, when death was closest or despair was closest, the vision always emerged as a light that dissipates all danger or as a consoling dew for our souls. of that Cuban Virgin par excellence, Cuban because of the origin of her centuries-old devotion, and Cuban because this is how our unforgettable mothers loved her, this is how our loving wives bless her and this is how our soldiers have proclaimed her, all praying before her for the achievement of victory and for the peace of our forgotten dead; and it would show a shameful ingratitude on our part if, in response to the benefits that this exalted Virgin lavished upon us, we remained inactive or mute, and did not raise our voice before the successor of Saint Peter, so that he could become an interpreter of the feelings of the Catholic people of Cuba. and those of his Liberation Army who profess the religion of our ancestors, and using the powers with which he is invested, declare, after the corresponding procedures, the Virgin of Charity of Cobre as Patroness of the Republic of Cuba, and of an ecclesiastical holiday in it on the day that bears his holy name.
Therefore, we humbly beseech Your Holiness to kindly grant our request.
Villa del Cobre on September twenty-four, one thousand nine hundred and fifteen.
(And the signatures of officers, classes and soldiers of the Liberation Army follow)
In these nine days of praise and prayers to the Virgin of Charity, she invites us to live as her children and tells us so in the Letter to the Romans, chapter 12, verses 9 to 21.
…
-Say the names of some mambises who wrote to Pope Benedict XV.
– Which president of Cuba prayed before the Sanctuary to the Virgin of Charity of Cobre?
Answer the phone number 78624000. We will give you a rosary with the guide to pray.
Sweet mother, Virgin of Charity, do not go away, do not turn your eyes away from me.
Come with me everywhere and just never leave me.
And since you protect me so much, as a true mother, may the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit bless me. Amen.
(Song)