The devils, at least in Murcia, respect the obligatory siesta. Because they visit the houses between seven and eight in the evening. That happened to a slave of Alonso García, a resident of San Antolín in 1576. The girl was sweeping a room when she saw enter “four terrible demons who, approaching her, seized her with great fury to take her away and bury her in the tartarous caverns of hell.” ».
The chronicles do not remember what the young woman had done to them. They say that she used to exclaim: “May the demons take me if I lie!” She until she lied. And look: they came to take her away. But she was still ready to start invoking the Murcian Virgen de los Remedios. At that moment, the devils “quickly detached her from her and fled from her room.” The whole family came, alerted by the loud noise. The slave claimed to have seen the image of that Virgin next to her. Why do they want more?
It is just one of the miracles treasured by the sculpture of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios that is venerated in the church of La Merced. Her story is as exceptional as I forgot we have it. Starting with his discovery. José de Villalba recounts in his ‘Pensil del Ave María’ (1730) that during a flood a floating chest appeared in Segura, on which there was a bell that the capsizing made ring.
The chronicles say that a captive requested his intercession and transferred him from Orán to Lorca
Some curious people tried in vain to remove the heavy chest. They were in those when the mercenary friars from the nearby convent came to the shore and, instantly, the piece of furniture came ashore. No one doubted that they should stay the size. Immediately the wonders began. The most spectacular, which Cascales refers to in his ‘Historia de Murcia’, recalls how a young man got engaged to her girlfriend in front of her and, shortly after, gave her up. She summoned him to the church and before the carving, which according to the chronicles was made of marble, she asked him: “Is it not true, Madam, that this man in your presence gave me his word to be my husband?”
The Virgin then inclined her head towards the unfortunate woman, agreeing with her. There was, of course, a wedding. Even today, on the front of the Temple of La Merced and from the beginning of the 18th century, a representation of the Remedies can be admired in that position. That is why the Murcians nicknamed her the Virgin of the One-Eye Neck. In another city in any other part of the world, legions of tourists would come to admire it.
So great was the veneration of the people towards the image that it was transferred to the main altar of the church at the end of the 18th century, replacing the holder of the order, Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, as Professor Álvaro Hernández maintains in his magnificent doctoral thesis. vincent.
The oldest account of the legend was signed by Cascales in his ‘Discursos’, an indispensable Murcian work published in 1621 with the blessings of King Philip II and the Bishop of Cartagena. The author highlighted that “she has done infinite miracles and has remedied many needs, from which she took the name of Our Lady of Remedies.”
Researcher Antonio Jiménez Lacárcel says that the sculpture acquired such a reputation for being miraculous that it gave rise to a custom that was as surprising as it was harmful to the integrity of the piece. Thus, the rumor spread that the powder detached from it and diluted in water was a powerful remedy to cure any disease.
In 1576, according to the chronicles, some Jumillano parents brought their five-year-old son who had gone blind to the temple. There, while they were praying, they applied a little earth from the floor of the chapel to his neck; and in his eyes, oil from the lamps. He immediately recovered his sight.
his guts were spilling out
A similar oil was applied the following year by Amador López, a resident of Murcia who suffered from a brutal hernia: with a truss he “stopped his guts, which came out in large quantities,” Villalba says. The man healed and, as a testimony, left the truss hanging in the chapel.
Every year events occurred that many called supernatural. On another occasion, a Mercedarian priest was so taken with the image that he hatched a plan to treasure a part of it. Thus, he tore off the Child’s head and replaced it with a wooden one very similar to the original. After a short time, the head returned to his sculpture and the false one remained at her feet, to the fright of the friar.
In the legend there is something certain: the Child was beheaded. But they did it to adjust a tunic. Land mark. The Virgin’s right arm suffered a similar fate, replaced by a cardboard one that held a scepter and a bouquet of flowers. Anyway. Manca left her and that’s how she looks today.
Miracles were not limited to the historic Diocese of Cartagena. Some of them are amazing. This is the case of the liberation of Sebastián López from Toledo in 1571. The man was imprisoned in Algiers and, fed up with hearing how other Murcian prisoners recounted the wonders of the Virgin, he begged her to release him.
In an oversight of his captors, Sebastian escaped after twelve years of captivity. So far, something to use in so many cases. Now, however, comes the good. While he was heading to Oran, two lions came out to meet the fleeing man. Again, he invoked that distant Murcian Virgin.
When the beasts heard the name of Los Remedios, “they approached him as if offering to be his companions and guide on his journeys,” Villalba said. They did so until they reached the city, when they fled in terror. Those events made such an impression on Sebastián (let’s see who wouldn’t be) that on December 20, 1571 he landed in Murcia to thank Marian help.
The prodigy of the ditch
That year another even more legendary event happened. Alonso de Tello, from Lorca, was walking along the Cope beach when he was captured and taken to Algiers. As torture, every night they put him to sleep in an ark on which a guardian slept. That you also have to want. He then prayed to the Remedies and fell asleep; to wake up in the same place of capturing him. Without returning to Lorca, he walked to the capital to thank for the help.
On another occasion, he even revived a child who had drowned hours before in the Aljufía ditch and whose mother brought him already dead before the miraculous sculpture. She kept a pregnant woman who fell into another ditch alive for more than half an hour, “without having drunk a drop of water.” The last miracle of the Virgen del Cuello Tuerto would be that, in this forgetful Murcia, the legend would become a tourist attraction. But a fat miracle.
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