“The Virgin is always ahead.” Almost like a lament or like the confirmation of hope in the Patron Saint of Canary Islandsthe actor José Luis de Madariaga showed his surprise when, having just arrived on the stage of the Basilica square, he saw the Morena Image stretching out at the doors of the temple, minutes before 8:00 p.m. to make way for the Ceremony of the Guanches to which he has been lending his voice for five years.
Since five in the afternoon –almost at the same time as in the Plaza de Teror, at the entrance to the municipality, the meeting between two groups from the two twinned Marian towns of the Canary Islands was being held– the stairs of the Fuente de los Peregrinos had become in the most popular locations to follow live the first exit of the Virgin of Candelaria to her square after two years of sanitary limitations due to covid.
In the morning, the Villa’s car parks were too small, both the one located at the viewpoint located behind the Civil Guard and on the side of the road that leads to the Güímar Industrial Estate, which that it foreshadowed that in the afternoon the Villa would be blocked, something that finally did not happen; moreover, there were fewer pilgrims than in previous years.
The soft morning breeze subsided with the passing of the hours, in the same proportion as Candelaria was filled with fervor and emotion. Two high points: the Ceremony of the Guanches and the procession of the Patron Saint through the streets of the Villa, enlivened by the voices of Sislena Caparrosa, on the way to El Pozo where the traditional fires were recovered, and on the way back, in the house of Miguel Ángel Olivera, with the interpretation of the candelariera Anaé – who also records a Carnival song that fills her song to the Brown Virgin with feeling. And now from the balcony of the old Town Hall of the town -once the village school-, with the interventions of Olga Benavente, Fernando Santana and Chago Melián, whose participation always brings to mind the Dominican Jesús Mendoza, who loved and promoted the Patron Saint so much from the Canary Islands And as a climax, the words of the rector of the Basilica, José Ramón Enjamio, who, before the traditional Hail Mary, dedicated a reminder to people who are no longer here due to the incidence of the pandemic and encouraged pilgrims to meet God through of Maria.
This August 14, Candelaria once again celebrated International Pilgrim and Tradition Day, where faith, devotion or love for the Virgin is shown to the surface among the tens of thousands of pilgrims who pass these days through the Villa Mariana .
Already the moment of the departure of the Virgin from the Basilica to preside over the Ceremony of the Guanches raised tears in many pilgrims, to the point that the most incredulous admitted feeling moved and overwhelmed by the beauty of the Image on a silver throne with skirt blue embroidered in silver that for some represented that the image rose above the sea. It was the last ceremony of the Guanches in the square before the next August Festivities are under construction, which will force them to find a new location for these acts.
The desire for a reunion was made clear in the pyrotechnic display at El Pozo in honor of the Patron Saint and in the one that took place at the end of Chago Melián’s Ave María. Candelaria shuddered last night between fireworks in the reunion with the Patron Saint of the Canary Islands between cheers for the Virgin that gave way to isas and folías on the night of the pilgrims.
