Saint Mary of Coromoto in Guanare de los Cospes is the Patroness of Venezuela , of Caracas , of the Diocese of Guanare; and since November 19, 2011, Principal Patroness of the Archdiocese of Caracas, after the Holy See approved its designation. 1 It is accepted as a Marian devotion , venerated in Guanare (capital of the State of Portuguesa), where she appeared 372 years ago and left her image to an indigenous chief of the Cospes tribe called Coromoto. The image, which measures 2.5 centimeters high by 2 centimeters wide, is displayed for veneration in the Minor Basilica National Sanctuary of Our Lady of Coromoto 2 , built on the site of her second appearance on Monte de los Negros.
Our Lady of Coromoto is the Patroness of Venezuela. She is venerated both in the city of Guanare, where she appeared on September 8, 1652, and throughout the country. When the city of Guanare was founded in 1591, the indigenous people who lived in the region, the Cospes, fled to the jungle north of the new city. This made evangelization, which the Catholic Church had undertaken throughout the region, difficult. One day in 1651, Chief Coromoto and his wife were crossing a stream and saw a Lady of extraordinary beauty who told them in their language: “Go to the whites’ house and ask them to pour water on your head so you can go to heaven.” Coincidentally, a Spaniard named Juan Sánchez passed by and Chief Coromoto told him what had happened.
Sánchez then asked him to join the tribe, and that he would come in eight days to teach them everything necessary to baptize them. Indeed, when he returned, the natives marched with him to an angle formed between the Guanaguanare and Tucupido rivers, where they distributed lands to them and began catechizing, in order to prepare them for baptism. Several natives received baptism, but not Coromoto, who missed the forest where he was free and did not have to obey the whites. This made him prepare to flee the camp. However, on Saturday, September 8, 1652, the Lady reappeared in his hut, in the presence of Coromoto, his wife, his sister-in-law Isabel and a nephew of hers. The chief took an arrow and aimed to kill her. As the Lady approached him, Coromoto shot the arrow and tried to push her away, but she disappeared, leaving him with a small scroll with her image engraved on it.
On the afternoon of Saturday, September 11, 1652, Juan Sánchez arranged to gather the natives who worked in Soropo, in view of which the Castilian urged the Chief to join his companions and attend the religious acts that were going to be held in the hut, which he had arranged for these meetings next to his room. Coromoto flatly refused this invitation, and while his companions prayed, he, with great anger and rage, tried to rush to his town. But, after a few moments since his arrival at the hut with his wife, his sister-in-law and his nephew, the Lady reappeared in a visible and corporeal form at the threshold of the native’s hut. Copious rays of light came out from her that bathed the narrow confines of the hut, as powerful “as the midday sun,” as described by Isabel, Coromoto’s sister-in-law.
Isabel’s nephew ran to tell Juan Sánchez, who with two of his companions went to the place where the woman appeared and collected the parchment she left behind. The image was lit by Sánchez with just a piece of black wax. This light burned day and night without burning, from 12 noon on Sunday until Tuesday afternoon. This event was considered miraculous by witnesses. They informed the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, who, despite not believing it, decided to take the parchment to the Church of Guanare in 1654, where it remained in a reliquary until 1987, when it was embedded in the pedestal of the wooden image on which it lies today in the National Sanctuary of Our Lady of Coromoto, built on the site of this second apparition.
Chief Coromoto, seeing that the Lady had not achieved anything with him, fled to the jungle, where he was bitten by a poisonous snake. Then he began to ask for baptism, which was administered to him by someone who was passing by. Upon being baptized, he became an apostle among the natives, asking them not to separate from the missionary and to be baptized, and then he died (quote). 3 As a result of this, the Cospes Indians formed a very fervent community of believers.
Today, near Guanare (Portuguesa State), on the site of the second apparition, a beautiful temple was built, the National Sanctuary “Our Lady of Coromoto”, which was consecrated to this virgin on January 7, 1996, and inaugurated with the solemn Eucharist presided over by Pope John Paul II on February 10, 1996 4. Behind the altar is the image of the woman. Below this image is a reliquary of gold, diamonds and pearls.