CHARLOTTE — Hundreds of people gathered at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church for the feast of the Lord of Miracles on Sunday, Oct. 9. After the solemn Mass, crowds followed dozens of parishioners clad in purple regalia for a procession celebrating the revered Peruvian devotion.
Father Leo Tiburcio, parochial vicar, accompanied by Deacon Eduardo Bernal, celebrated Mass in honor of the miraculous image of the so-called “Cristo Moreno de Pachacamilla.”
In his homily, Deacon Bernal compared our desire and search for healing and miracles with Sunday’s Gospel of the 10 lepers.
“Ours is a similar search for grace and healing, as surely many of us come today to ask the Lord of Miracles for healing,” Deacon Bernal said. “But our pride does not let us realize that it is so close to obtaining each day, just by following Christ, and listening what our priests dictate to us.”
At the end of the Mass, the attendees followed the procession outside where the image of the Lord of Miracles was already prepared on a dais which would be carried across church grounds.
Deacon Bernal blessed the sacred images, along with the members of the brotherhood of the Lord of Miracles who were preparing to carry the dais on their shoulders, encouraging them to continue their work of faith.
At each stop along the procession across the church grounds, prayerful devotees placed flowers in front of the two central images, the Lord of the Miracles and Our Lady of the Clouds.
Parents raised their young children to place flowers in front of the image of Our Lord as it passed among the crowd.
Flora Núñez, who for 25 years saw the procession of the Lord of the Miracles pass by outside the door of her house in Lima, said she has been devoted since she was a child, when her mother entrusted her to the “Purple Christ” to heal from a disease that affected her.
“Through intercession to the Lord of Miracles, I was healed, and many others experienced miraculous healing as well,” she said.
“My faith has brought me to see the Lord of Miracles,” said Irineo Garay. “My wife passed away four years ago, after 64 years of marriage. Today I am 90 years old and I come to visit the Lord for the both of us, to ask the Lord for the health of my family.”
Jorge Caldas, foreman of the Hermandad South Charlotte, which organizes the procession, thanked the constant support of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish. The church houses the image year round, so that people may come and venerate the image and stay connected or learn more about this Peruvian devotion.
History of the Lord of Miracles
On Nov. 13, 1655, a devastating earthquake shook Lima, leaving thousands dead and villages turned to rubble. In Pachacamilla, a poor neighborhood comprised of
Angolan slaves, the image of a brown-skinned Christ, painted on a wall in the village, remained perfectly intact.
The veneration began during another earthquake in 1687 when, in a series of prayers, the steward of the chapel of Santo Cristo, Don Sebastián de Antuñano, took an oil copy of the original painting of Christ through the devastated streets of Lima, asking for the end of the cataclysm.
In 1746, Lima suffered the most destructive earthquake in its history, and it is said that a replica of the image came out in procession and the earth stopped shaking instantly.
Appointed in 1715 as “Patron of the City of Lima” and designated by the Vatican in 2005 as the “Patron of Peruvian Residents and Immigrants,” the Lord of Miracles remains one of the largest processions in the world.
— César Hurtado. Photos by Travis Burton and César Hurtado.
See more photos and video of the Lord of the Miracles procession in Charlotte:
