Pilgrim in prayer on Feast Day of Virgin of Los Angeles

Third Most Important  Catholic Religious Holiday in Costa Rica, The Feast Day of the La Virgin de los Angeles

August 2nd each year Costa Rica celebrates it’s third  most important religious holiday, The Feast Day of the Virgin de los Angeles (Christmas and Easter being the two other most important religious holidays)

The banks  and other government buildings are closed, as well as many businesses.

This holiday is celebrated August 2nd with a pilgrimage to Cartago to  the country’s principal cathedral, the enormous Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles, on the Feast Day of the Virgin of the Angeles.  (the black virgin or La Negrita).   Hundreds of thousands of people-old, young,  well and sick,  walk  to this holy place from even the most remote areas  of Costa Rica.   Many walk for more than a week. When they get to the Basilica they crawl on their knees into the church where they pray for miracles.  To heal their bodies and cleanse their souls.

According to legend, a statue of the black virgin, the Black Madonna, known as La Negrita, was found by an indigenous girl around the year 1635.  She took it home but it mysteriously reappeared on the same rock where she found it.

The rock is revered as a sacred relic and object of inspiration.  This rock was placed  in the Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles in Cartago.  It is common for pilgrims to touch the rock in reverence. And the famed holy Black Virgin Statue sits on a golden alter beset with precious stones.

This year on August 2nd the Health Ministry of Costa Rica prohibited the pilgrimage because the Swine flu epidemic.

So the  pilgrims, instead of walking to Cartago, walked from the countryside to the Catholic churches in their home towns.  Here they erected  flower adorned alters with a statue of the virgin.  And  pilgrims crawled on their knees to the alter to pray for miracles.

It is common for Costa Rican mothers to name their children after the Virgin de Los Angeles.  For example a friend of mine named her little girl Xinia de los Angeles.

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