St. Margaret of Scotland Parish in Morristown observed The Virgin of the Swan, or La Virgen del Cisne, a Marian Catholic devotion from Ecuador, on Sept. 21 during a Field Mass in Spanish celebrated by Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney in the parking lot. The feast day in Ecuador is on Aug. 15.
Many congregants wore ethnic clothing and carried roses during the Mass, which featured a procession of an image of The Virgin of the Swan, which sat next to the altar. Bishop Sweeney later censed the image. Father Duberney Villamizar, pastor of St. Margaret’s and the Paterson Diocesan vicar for Hispanic affairs, concelebrated the liturgy with Bishop Sweeney.
Click here to subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
In the small town of Cisne, or “The Swan,” in Ecuador, a drought and plague of rats destroyed crops in the region in 1594. The people decided to emigrate in search of a better land. But then, a woman herding sheep in a pasture met the Virgin Mary, crowned with roses, who asked the people to confide in her and build a shrine in the pasture, which they did. Then, the rains fell on or around Oct. 12, 1594, according to the Catholic Travel Guide.
The natives of El Cisne commissioned a wooden statue of Virgen del Cisne, known as “La Churona,” which depicts her holding the Christ Child in her left hand and a scepter in her right. This statue was canonically crowned in 1930. A new shrine was consecrated in 1979, the Catholic Travel Guide states.
Annually, in mid-August, thousands of pilgrims accompany La Churona on a three-day journey to the Cathedral in Loja, where the statue remains until returning to the Basilica of El Cisne on Nov. 1, according to the Catholic Travel Guide.
“Today we continue to gather as a community to honor her, because we strongly believe in her maternal intercession. The Virgin invites us to build, not only stone chapels, but living temples in our hearts where faith, hope, and charity reign,” St. Margaret’s posted on social media after the Mass.
