Our Lady
Our Lady of Altagracia
Title of the Blessed Virgin Mary · Feast January 21 · Dominican Republic
Protectress of the Dominican people, venerated at Higüey in a sixteenth-century painting of the Nativity in which the Virgin kneels in adoration before her newborn Son.
Origin
The painting was brought to Hispaniola from Spain early in the sixteenth century and venerated at Higüey in the east of the island, where devotion to Our Lady of Altagracia became the oldest continuous Marian devotion of the Americas. The great modern basilica at Higüey was built to receive the pilgrims. Her feast is kept in the Dominican Republic on 21 January, a day observed throughout the country; St. John Paul II's first journey outside Italy, in January 1979, began at Santo Domingo.
Why it matters
Because the image is of the Nativity, the devotion is Christmas devotion: what is venerated is the Word made flesh and the Mother's adoration of him. It illustrates the rule Marialis Cultus lays down for all Marian piety, that it be Christological in orientation, since here Mary herself is depicted with her eyes on Christ and the pilgrim's eyes are led to follow hers.
Feast day
January 21
Region
Dominican Republic
Iconography notes
Unusually for a national patronal image, this is a Nativity scene rather than a portrait: the Virgin, in a blue mantle strewn with stars, kneels with hands joined before the newborn Christ laid before her, with St. Joseph behind and the stable roof above. Mary is shown adoring her Son, not presenting herself.
Aliases
- Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia
- Virgen de la Altagracia
Content subtype
devotional_title
Associated prayers
hail-mary
salve-regina
litany-of-the-blessed-virgin-mary