When is Lady of Aparecida?
Lady of Aparecida (Festividad de la Bien Aparecida) is a regional public holiday in the Spanish autonomous community of Cantabria on September 15th each year.
This holiday honours the Virgin Mary, Cantabria's patron saint through a statue that was found at the start of the 17th century.
Traditions of Lady of Aparecida
In Spain and many Latin American countries with a Spanish heritage, the veneration of the Virgin Mary through a statue is a common reason for a public holiday.
In the case of this autonomous community in northern Spain, the story of the statue in question dates back to 1605, when found a small statue of Mary in a window of the hermitage of San Marco.
The statue soon became known as Aparecida (meaning "she who has appeared") and although the Lady of Aparecida only officially became the patron saint of Cantabria in 1906, her veneration has been popular in the region since the eighteenth century. It was then that the sanctuary of the Virgin Bien Aparecida, located on a hill five kms from the town of Ampuero, was constructed.
Including the pedestal, the statue is 21.6 cm (9") tall. Made of wood, the features of the face and hair have a delicate varnish. It is not known who created the image, though it does not predate the fifteenth century. The statue remains in good condition and is decorated with fine garments. It sits in a frame made in the Spanish-Flemish style.
The Lady of Aparecida Festival takes place exactly a month after the Feast of the Assumption, the most important festival dedicated to Mary, though September is also the Day of Sorrows. This is a Roman Catholic feast day that marks the seven sorrows of the Virgin Mary and is a public holiday in Slovakia.
Brazil observes a public holiday on October 12th for Our Lady of Aparecida, venerating another statue of Mary, this time found by fishermen in 1717.
