Our Virgin of Montserrat at Montserrat (Monistrol de Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain) Photo
Pablo César Pérez González.The year 880 some shepherds saw a light at Montserrat mountain (so called because its shape, whose peaks seem to be cut with a saw). Searching the cause of this light they found a cave and an image of the Virgin Mary inside the cave.
The bishop wanted this image at Manresa. But once on the path, the convoy arrived to some place impossible to pass, as they couldn't move a single inch more. As everyone saw it as a Holy sign, this very same spot was the place to build a hermit, which in the years to come would be the abbey we currently know.
This is the legend. The proven truth is that since these days the people venerates there the Holy Virgin Mary. She is Catalonia's patron since year 1881. It's the place to go for thousands of pilgrims and tourists. It's a simbo of ours catalonian nation and a shelter for our culture ("Serra d'or", monastry's publishing house, was able to publish books in catalan even when Franco's regime madde it near to impossible).
And, finally, the year 1493 Christopher Columbus took a monk from Montserrat named Bernat de Boïl. So they carried the name of Montserrat to the other side of the ocean, all around the New World even to this place where, generations of colombians will go to venerate the "Cristo caído de Monserrate".
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Links:
Montserrat Abbey
Cerro de Monserrate (in spanish)
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