Hundreds of Catholic pilgrims from different regions of the country and even from the border areas of Honduras arrived at the Sanctuary of the apparition of the Virgin of Cacaulí, five kilometers north of the city of Somoto, in Madriz, to ask for just one thing. : peace in Nicaragua.
The visit has been a custom on the 8th of every month since 1990. Hundreds of families attend the site, the vast majority from rural communities in the north of the country and from the border municipality of San Marcos de Colón, in Honduras, to participate in the mass that priests from the parishes of Madriz officiate there. They also listen to the testimony of Francisco José Tercero, who assures that the Virgin appeared to him when she was 13 years old, while he was looking for firewood in that place.
The visitors prayed that peace be restored in Nicaragua this year. “We agreed to ask the Virgin of Cacaulí to intercede for us before our creator (God) so that this year in our country the peace that Nicaraguans long for so much reigns. That we stop killing each other and that those who govern us do so humanely, respecting religious beliefs or faith and ideas and respect public liberties”said Mr. Estanislao José Sequeira Manzanares.
“The people suffer”
Sequeira Manzanares, affirmed that a people suffers when there are wars, poverty or misery, unemployment, hatred and persecution due to political ideologies and when the church or religious beliefs are persecuted.
“It is sad to see how many young people have abandoned their families in the communities because they feel that there are no job and study opportunities here. There are communities that look desolate because in some cases entire families have left looking for better opportunities”said Sequeira Manzanares, who lives in the El Ángel Uno community, in the municipality of San José de Cusmapa, in Madriz.
While Mrs. Rosa Emilia Bustamante López, from the La Esperanza community in the municipality of Yalagüina, Madriz, said that she also came to the Cacaulí Sanctuary to ask the Virgin to give peace to Nicaragua. “We all want peace to live well, to work the land without fear and to be able to get ahead. It is sad to see how many homes disintegrate because young people go after better opportunities or how there are hate crimes, because God is not in their hearts”he pointed out, as he prayed on his knees.
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For Mr. Oscar Martínez Ponce, a resident of the Barrio 18 sector, in the city of Somoto, head of Madriz, people in Nicaragua need to believe more in God. “This will be a very difficult year for all of humanity, we have experienced the coronavirus pandemic, wars in other countries and high costs of living with rising prices of food and other necessities and things are not going to be fine this year, if we do not ask the creator for us to give peace to Nicaraguans”said.
a miraculous sanctuary
Francisco José Tercero, now 32 years old, was only 13 years old when he recounted that on the afternoon of December 8, 1990, while he was looking for firewood on his grandfather’s farm located in the Somoteño community of Cacaulí, the Virgin appeared to him. who gave him important messages that he would later reveal to the Catholics who meet on the eighth of each month in the sanctuary that was built in honor of the apparitions.
“I come with my whole family on the eighth of each month to the sanctuary of the Virgin of Cacaulí, because the Virgin has cured me of diseases such as rheumatism in both legs, which previously made it difficult for me to walk and work; and also to ask for the health of my husband and children”Mrs. Francisca Pérez Hernández, 59, who traveled from the Honduran municipality of San Marcos de Colón, stated as part of her testimony.
Like hers, there are many testimonies of the miracles received by Catholic believers who visit the Sanctuary. “The whole family has come here because we have to fulfill a promise we made to the little virgin that she would heal our daughter who suffered from a serious skin infection that the doctors had already said could not be cured, but the little virgin of Cacaulí did. made”recounted Mrs. Francisca Ruiz Martínez, an inhabitant of the community of Santo Domingo, an area of the Madrid municipality of Totogalpa.
By: United Voices
