Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre

On 8 September, the day the Church celebrates Mary’s birth, the people of Cuba honor Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, the patroness of their island. Charity is an old word for love that gives itself. The Church teaches that charity is the virtue by which we love God above all things, and our neighbor as ourselves. Mary’s image of Charity is a small statue, kept in the basilica of El Cobre, near Santiago de Cuba, and it shows Mary holding the child Jesus.

The account handed down tells it like this. Around the year 1612, three men, known in the story as the three Juans, went out in a small boat on the Bay of Nipe, in the east of Cuba, to gather salt for the copper mines of El Cobre. They were two brothers, Juan and Rodrigo de Hoyos, and Juan Moreno. On the water they saw something white floating toward them. It was a small statue of Mary holding the child Jesus, fixed to a board, and the board said that she was the Virgin of Charity. The story says that the statue was dry. Juan Moreno himself told it years later, as an old man, in 1687.

The statue was taken to El Cobre, and a shrine was built for her there. Ever since, Cubans of every kind have come to pray before her. In 1916 Pope Benedict XV declared her patroness of Cuba, at the request of the veterans of the war of independence. Pope John Paul II crowned her image in 1998, and Pope Francis prayed at her shrine in 2015. Cubans love her tenderly and call her Cachita, wherever they live, from Havana to Miami, and pilgrims often bring her yellow flowers. The Church does not require us to believe every detail of the story. What it teaches is that Mary is a mother who prays for us, and that it is right to honor her.

The name of Charity brings to mind what Mary did right after she said yes to God. When she heard that her cousin Elizabeth was expecting a baby, she set out at once and went with haste to help her, and she stayed with her about three months. Mary shows us that charity is love that hurries to serve. And she sings with joy, because she knows that everything good comes from God. In her song she says: