January 14
La Divina Pastora, Santa Rosa, Lara, Venezuela
Around 1736, the pastor of Santa Rosa Catholic Church, in the town of the same name in central Venezuela, ordered a statue of the Immaculate Conception, but instead got a Holy Shepherdess statue ordered by the pastor of a church in nearby Barquisimeto. He immediately tried to send the statue on to its rightful destination, but it suddenly became so heavy no one could move it. And so Santa Rosa kept the Divina Pastora, now the patron saint of the state of Lara. On January 14, 1855, the statue was carried in procession during a cholera epidemic, which ended that same day. Since then, every January 14 a team of men carry the statues of the Holy Shepherdess, Child Jesus, and sheep in a large processional shrine from the Basilica in Santa Rosa to the Barquismeto cathedral, accompanied by millions of pilgrims, some barefoot.
Photo of statue in 2005 procession from Universidad Centroccidental Lisandro Alvarado, www.ucla.edu.ve
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