Peoms and Poems -- How fun! I really love what you're doing here, and am delighted to share more poetry...
El Santuario de Chimayo (New Mexico) is known for its sacred, healing, holy dirt. I had the honor of writing the 2006-2007 Visitors' Guide for The Espanola Valley, and this poem plus the article following are included in that guide.
A Visit to El Santuario de Chimayo, Northern New Mexico
A sense of the sacred
permeates these grounds
where El Santo Niño de Atocha walks
A sense of the truly holy
infuses the wind in the air,
the leaves in the wind
& that holy wind breathes itself into
You,
the traveler here in search
of a miracle
A soft and single
splash of water kisses your praying hands,
then sparkles down
into the healing, blesséd earth
that gives beneath your resting knees
and you realize
you are in the middle of a shining, gentle rain
Your heart and mind stretch heavenward
and deep into your soul
as you continue your prayer,
kneeling, as you are,
on this holy, sacred land
Then a clean, clear drift
of shimmering, silent snow
brushes your face, your
heart, your mind and soul
with a singular grace and beauty
And you gaze dreamily up in wonder,
with strong and joyful tears
of truth and comprehension
baptizing your uplifted, enraptured face
As you know, and as you feel
throughout your entire being,
that you are healed,
forgiven,
and ever, forever belovéd
(c) 2006
El
Santuario de Chimayo and the Sacred Earth
Set among piñon pine, El Santuario de Chimayo is
located in Northern New Mexico in a small town
noted for its weavings, apples and red chile. It is believed by many to be one
of the truly holy places in America.
Long before the Spanish arrived, this part of New Mexico was the center for many points of
pilgrimage and prayer. Called Tsimayo-pokwi by Native Americans, the entire valley was believed
to be holy.
El Santuario is famous for "holy dirt" -- dirt
which is known to have brought about
miraculous cures – witness the many crutches, braces, etc., left behind by
those who have experienced such miracles.
It is also famous
for the "Crucifix of Señor de Los Esquipulas" carved from a wood
unknown in NM, and for El Santo Niño de Atocha.
There are documented testimonies
that the extraordinary has occurred in this tiny town, dating as far back as the
1800’s and even earlier. Fr. Sebastian Alvarez wrote a letter to the Episcopal
See of Durango, dated November l6, l8l3, stating that there were hosts of
pilgrims coming from far and near seeking cures for their illnesses and
afflictions. And as the news of ever-growing cures spread, more and more kept
coming.
The
Crucifix of El Señor de Los Esquipulas
According to one version
of the legend of El Santuario, a farmer named Don Bernardo
Abeita had a vision while working in his field one day that told him to dig
beneath his plow where he would find earth with great healing powers.
The farmer did as he was commanded and
discovered a cross and pieces of cloth belonging to two long martyred priests.
Thereupon the farmer built a rough adobe chapel to house the cross. The year
was 1813.
Another version of the legend, passed down from
generation to generation, recalls that during Holy Week on the night of Good
Friday, a Chimayo friar was performing penances when he saw a light bursting
from a hillside near the Santa Cruz River.
When he went there, he noticed that the
shining light was coming from the ground and started to dig with his bare hands.
Lo, he found a Crucifix, which was soon named the miraculous Crucifix of Our
Lord of Esquipulas.
He left it there and called the
neighbors to come and venerate the precious finding. A group of men was sent to
notify a local priest, Fr. Sebastian Alvarez at Santa Cruz.
Upon hearing the extraordinary
news, the priest and people set out for Chimayo. When they arrived at the place
where the Crucifix was, Fr. Sebastian picked it up and carried it in a joyful
procession back to the church in Santa
Cruz, where he placed it reverently in an alcove on
the main Altar. Then he closed the church for the evening.
The next morning, the Crucifix was
gone, only to be found in its original location in Chimayo. A second procession
was organized and the Crucifix was returned to Santa Cruz, but once again it disappeared,
When the same thing happened a
third time, everyone understood that El Señor de Esquipulas wanted to remain in
Chimayo, and so a small chapel was built on the site.
Then the miraculous healings
began. These grew so numerous that the chapel had to be replaced by the larger,
current Chimayo Shrine -- an adobe mission -- in 1816.
El Posito, the "sacred sand pit"
where the miraculous Crucifix was found, gapes unevenly behind the main altar
of the Santuario. It is to El Posito that the lame and the blind come, seeking
miracles, The soil is believed
to produce a mud that, when eaten or applied to the skin, has miraculous
healing powers. The crippled, blind, and those afflicted with other diseases
come to be cured when all other treatments have failed.
El
Santo Niño de Atocha
WEAR OUT YOUR LITTLE SHOES TRAVELING AT NIGHT
PERFORMING MIRACLES
PATRON:
Pilgrims, Prisoners, Poor
Here also is where El Santo Niño
de Atocha (The Holy Child of Atocha) lives, although He is sometimes called Santa
Niño Perdido (The Lost Holy Child) because He is absent from the church at
night. It is believed that Santo Niño travels throughout the country at night
while performing miracles.
Frequently, villagers and visitors
place pairs of their loved ones’ tiny baby shoes at the feet of El Santo Niño
as offerings to replace the pairs He wears out during his nightly travels.
Many villagers
believed that the Santo Niño image was found in the hole where the sacred earth
is found.
As the story has
been passed down, a farmer and his daughter were plowing his fields with oxen,
when suddenly the girl heard what she thought were church bells ringing beneath
the ground. She beseeched her father to dig and retrieve them, which he did. He
not only found the bells, but a wooden statue of Santo Niño de Atocha.
The fame of El
Santuario grew as its miraculous healing powers came to be attributed to the
Infant Jesus as well as to Our Lord of Esquipulas.
Devotion grew to
such great proportions, that another church was built next to the Sanctuary in
1850, in honor of Santo Niño de Atocha.
Both churches, open daily are
filled with the many letters, pictures or retablos of those healed, and photos
of those saved in serious car accidents. As you behold the crutches left, read
the testimonies shared, catch the sweet fragrance of candles burning, you are
filled with the awesome sense of the everlasting gratitude, faith and trust
that fills the visitors who have been coming here for centuries.
El Santuario has been a place of
worship from the beginning - a place to pray, to thank, to ask, to meditate and
to experience peace of mind as well as of body.
Today, as many as 300,000 pilgrims visit the Shrine
each year, some carrying crosses, some fulfilling promises, and all paying
homage to their Savior. They come
seeking peace, healing and miracles for themselves, their families and
the world.
(c) 2006