Description
Discovery
There have been many versions about the discovery of the Virgin of Suyapa, with minor variations in details. The most widely known and accepted among his devotees is that of his miraculous discovery by the agricultural worker Alejandro Colindres, in late January or early February 1747. The story tells that Colindres and an 8-year-old boy were sent by the mother of the first, Isabel Colindres, to clean corn fields in the Piliguín mountain, northeast of Tegucigalpa. On the way back, the night caught up with them and they decided to sleep outside. Colindres was kept awake by a sharp pain in his side, and he realized that he was lying on something, unable to see what it was because of the darkness, he took and threw what bothered him, but when he went back to bed there it was again . The next morning, Colindres discovered that it was a statuette of a virgin, which he later took to her mother’s house, in Villa de Suyapa, currently a neighborhood of the capital. There he built a wooden altar for her, where family acquaintances went to pray.
The first written accounts of the statue’s discovery do not mention the name of the peasant who found it. In some it is affirmed that he kept the object that bothered him and realized that it was a virgin until reaching her destination, or that she gave up throwing it when she realized that it emanated an aroma. The identity of Isabel Colindres, who appears in an old document as Alejandro’s sister, also varies.
Monument in his honor, placed in January 2012. Plaza de las Banderas, in front of the first entrance of the UNAH , near the Basilica.
Veneration
The statuette of the Virgin remained on the altar of the Colindres family for 21 years, until in 1768 it was credited with its first miracle and began to attract public attention. It was about the healing of Don José Zelaya Midence, who suffered from stones in his bladder, which he expelled after receiving the Virgin in her house and asking her for her health. 5 After her first miracle, the Colindres family began raising funds to build a chapel, which was completed in 1777.
In 1925, Pope Pius XI declared her Patron Saint of Honduras under the title of Our Lady of Suyapa and declared February 3 as her feast day. In the 1950s a large basilica was built next to the chapel, named Basilica de Suyapa . Currently, the statuette of the virgin spends most of its time in the chapel, but each year it is moved to the Basilica of Suyapa on the day of its celebration to accommodate the multitude of people who come to see it, both from Honduras and from around the world. Central America .
The statue of the virgin has a group of caretakers, all men, known as the Order of the Knights of Suyapa; founded in the 20th century, which is responsible for caring for the Virgin and her chapel. They also accompany the Virgin at all times when she leaves the chapel to travel or visit Honduras, as she often does every February of every year.
Songs have been written in honor of the Virgin, the most famous and considered a hymn being “Virgen de Suyapa” by Honduran singer Paco Medina. Quoted from Wiki
