Protect Us, Dear Virgin, Please!

I understand perfectly why many people have gone to live abroad. The problem of crime is extremely serious. I have lived through moments of great anguish when I have felt like grabbing the suitcases and running off with my husband and my six kids. In those moments when I have felt crushed, I ask the Virgin to help me be strong and hold on, with the fortitude she showed at the terrible moment when they were killing her Son.

Only faith has been able to keep many of us at our posts, fighting and praying with all our might from dawn until dusk, because sadly in this country we can count only on the protection of God and the Blessed Virgin to preserve our lives and those of our loved ones.

Several years ago something inexplicable happened here in Venezuela. The same week that a group of madmen smashed several images of the Virgin and of José Gregorio Hernández, news broke that some fishermen from Margarita Island had found the jewels stolen more than two years earlier from the Virgin of the Valley (all of them donated by the faithful of her shrine).

For almost three months (after the thieves threw the jewels into the sea while fleeing from the police), divers searched for them and could not find them. But no sooner did people start attacking religious images in our country than the jewels miraculously appeared before the eyes of fishermen from Margarita on the seabed, and they wasted no time in running to return them.

Humanly speaking, that has no explanation. God is showing us, in the twenty-first century, His omnipotent power. That Almighty power, the only one that can do All things. And the one that gives us the courage to keep going in “this valley of tears” of grief-stricken mothers and fathers who lose their children in a second, through the wickedness of some who do not know the meaning of respect or the value of human dignity.

What would become of the great majority of Venezuelans if we had no faith, if we did not lean on God and on the Virgin?

The Virgin of Coromoto knew this when she appeared in Guanare in 1651 and left us that wonderful relic, so that we would know we are her favorite children (only in Mexico and Venezuela has the Virgin left a relic with her image).

In this image she left us Venezuelans, we see the Virgin in a hut with the Child Jesus, who is embracing a small world. Why did she leave that image in Venezuela? Why are the Venezuelan people so profoundly Marian (you need only look at the windows of the buses to see how many titles of the Virgin there are here)? Why are most of us Venezuelans united in faith, and why have we not fallen into the hatred and hopelessness some have tried to sow? What does that Venezuelan Child Jesus embracing the world mean?

Virgin of Coromoto, you who are a mother and suffered the cruel death of your Son, ask Our Lord Jesus Christ to protect us from all harm!

And to you, dear Virgin, we pray that you help us imitate your example, so that we can carry on with great patience, fortitude and joy in this country where your Son willed us to be born, and where we have a mission to fulfill, because we know that God wants something great from Venezuela for the whole world.