LA VIERGE DE LUJÁN / THE VIRGIN OF LUJÁN / LA VERGINE DI LUJÁN
Dr Alejandro NOLAZCO, President of the Consorcio de Médicos Católicos de Buenos Aires.
In name of the Catholic Medical Consortium of Buenos Aires (Argentina) we want to thank the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (F.I.A.M.C.) for inviting us to share our admiration and love to our Holy Mother of Lujan.
In 1630 one farmer of Sumampa town asked to one friend, who lived in Brazil, to send him one image of the pure conception of the Virgin, for which he was building a little chapel in his farm. So his brazilian friend sent him two holy images. One of them was the requested and the other one was an image of our Lady Mother of God. The two images were packed in two boxes and sent to Argentina. In the way they stop at night, at the shore of the river Lujan. The following day, one of the two charts which carried one of the images could not move in spite of any effort. So they went down the image and carried it to one farm in the vicinity neighbourhood, where the owner built a little altar.
The holy image came with Manuel. He was a black man abducted violently from Africa and sold as slave. He was appointed to take care of the Holy Image. in this job he worked for more of fifty years. He did this work with total fidelity, and also assisted many pilgrims and poors.
The sanctuary was in Mrs Ana de Matos farm. So she bought the image too and sent to erect a new chapel where the image is settled at the moment. This lady made a pious donation of a plot of land with one condition, the image must remain in it for ever.
In 1684 went to that place Father Don Pedro de Montalbo to pay a visit to our lady. He was very ill. So Manuel prepared an ointment with the candle grease and place it in the chest of the priest. He recovered his health little by little. Manuel told him that he will be cured of his illness, because the will of the virgin was he to be the first chaplain of the shrine, and so it was.
In 1754 started a new shrine building. In 1871 the first official organized pilgrimage, the aim was to thank our lord for the end of the yellow fever epidemic in which thousands and thousands of people died. And also reparation against the outrage of the king of Italy, Victor-Emmanuel, to the pope Pius IX and the pontifical states. One year later, the priest of Saint Vincent of Paul congregation took care of the shrine. The basilica was build between 1887 and 1935.
In june1982 the pope John-Paul II visited our lady of Lujan. During his journey to Argentina, the pope prayed for the diseases of the country, and told them to trust the Lord with faith and he will help them with their afflictions by carrying the pains of each person and offering them with his death. The pope warned about many signs of our time such as divorces, abortions, euthanasia, all of them harmful for the human dignity and the Christian family. He proposed the Holy Family as a model for the Argentinian families in which was forged the future of the country.
The messages of our lady of Lujan to all the doctors of the world are:
1. To defend the human life dignity from the conception as a challenge that every people must assume.
2. To protect people with different capacities, especially sicknesses and elders.
One society that respects life, appraise the human dignity.
Unction of the sick.
From this Lourdes shrine and the others in the world, where our lady shows her maternal love to us, specially to those suffering and the sick, Our Lord preserved to the most Holy Virgin from the original sin and choose her as an instrument of our salvation.
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http://www.medicoscatolicos.org.ar/
** Small but always Mother!
http://www.corazones.org/maria/america/argentina_lujan.htm
*** From the FIAMC Conference in Lourdes, May 2010. Day: May, 8
