pray for us, la Cachita, and for Cubans throughout the world

image at Cuban Heritage Collection,
Richter Library, University of Miami

Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, Cuba (Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre) may not be as well known in American culture as Our Lady of Guadalupe. But one can find Our Lady of Charity’s image in churches around the world.

Wherever Cuban refugees have resettled, they have brought with them their devotion to la Caridad.

She is in a side chapel at the pre-eminent Marian shrine in the United States, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

She stands to the right of the altar at the open-air of St. Andrew by the Sea Catholic Church in North Padre Island, Texas.

[Just last year, an image of La Cachita, Cuba's beloved patron, was given a place of honor in the Vatican gardens.]

And in Miami, just south of the downtown skyscrapers, there is a beautiful shrine built in her honor by Cuban exiles 40 years ago.

“La Virgen de la Caridad is the most profound symbol of the Cuban nation,” said Bishop Felipe de Jesús Estévez of St. Augustine, FL. “The British have their queen, the Cubans have la Caridad. Even before Jamestown, El Cobre kept this gracious statue.”

Read more about her in my article on Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre here.

And for a personal reflection on what she means to me, drop by here.

Nuestra Señora de la Caridad, pray for Cuba.

Our Lady of Charity, pray for all Cubans, 

in the island as well as exiled throughout the world.

Pray for us, la Cachita, that we may be worthy of the promises of Christ.