Our Lady
Our Lady of Suyapa
Title of the Blessed Virgin Mary · Feast February 3 · Honduras
Patroness of Honduras, venerated in an image only a few centimetres high that has been kept at Suyapa, near Tegucigalpa, since the eighteenth century.
Origin
According to the account preserved at the shrine, in 1747 a labourer sleeping in the open near Suyapa found a very small wooden image of the Virgin, which was kept in his family's home and then, as reports of favours multiplied, in a chapel built for it. Pope Pius XI declared Our Lady of Suyapa patroness of Honduras in 1925. The image is venerated at the Basilica of Suyapa outside Tegucigalpa, and her feast is kept on 3 February.
Why it matters
The size of the image is itself part of the catechesis: a nation's patronal shrine is built around something a labourer could hold in his palm. The devotion carries the Magnificat's reversal into national life, and it has held Honduran Catholic identity together through poverty, migration and disaster, which is precisely the consolation the Church expects popular Marian piety to give.
Feast day
February 3
Region
Honduras
Iconography notes
The image is about six centimetres tall, carved from dark cedar, showing the Virgin standing with hands joined in prayer. Because it is so small it is set within a large gilded frame of rays, which is what most reproductions show.
Aliases
- Nuestra Señora de Suyapa
- Virgen de Suyapa
Content subtype
devotional_title
Associated prayers
hail-mary
salve-regina
litany-of-the-blessed-virgin-mary