Despite the epidemics and the economic crisis, devotees of San Lázaro go to El Rincón

Havana/Like every year since 2001, the residents of the La Jata neighborhood, in Guanabacoa, came forward to celebrate San Lázaro on the eve of his day. On this Tuesday afternoon, the neighbors gathered in the streets and walked, knocking, until they reached the house of the mythical Enriquitoa famous babalawo who founded, in 1957, the Cuban Association Hijos de San Lázaro and led this tradition until his health prevented him from doing so starting in 2016, shortly before he died.

A few hours later, at dawn on Wednesday, people of all ages began to arrive at the El Rincón sanctuary. Some residents commented to 14ymedio that years before the pilgrimage was much more massive. Despite the lack of transportation, people were able to arrive in collective cars from the Parque de la Fraternidad to the Cupet in Santiago de las Vegas, from where a five-kilometer procession with hundreds of pilgrims began. Some of the faithful advanced barefoot and many others kneeling.

As always and despite the deep crisis that the country is experiencing, the road was full of vendors of saints, flowers and candles. The prices of the candles vary depending on the size, between 100 and 200 pesos, while the flowers do not go below 500. As every year, the police presence was notable, and on every corner there was at least one agent. People were also observed drinking alcoholic beverages.

Already in the sanctuary, the mass celebrated by the Archbishop of Havana, Juán de la Caridad García, took considerably longer to begin. Every five minutes people arrived crawling, mainly women, mostly mothers barefoot and accompanied by dogs. Until the mass was over, candles were not allowed to be lit.

“Every devotee of San Lázaro knows that promises must be fulfilled,” Osmara told this newspaper, while, dressed in purple, she begged for a few coins from everyone who passed by.

After the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, El Rincón is the second most important pilgrimage center in Cuba. In its church, San Lázaro is worshiped, a figure of Catholicism syncretized with Babalú Ayé, orisha of the Yoruba pantheon who is attributed with the healing of diseases, particularly those of the skin. It is a devotion built over time in popular Cuban religiosity.

The temple was founded on a spring of waters considered healing. Even today, many faithful wet themselves with that water or take small blessed knobs as part of their promises. A few meters away is the old Royal Hospital of San Lázaro, which began as a leper colony and still operates today as a hospital specialized in dermatology.

The celebration of San Lázaro is part, without a doubt, of the deepest Cuban cultural and spiritual fabric, where Catholicism, Afro-Cuban religiosity and expressions of popular faith coexist. For this reason, the head of mission of the United States Embassy, ​​Mike Hammer, could not be missing, who does not miss an opportunity to approach Cubans on the street and disseminate videos in which he expresses his support for freedom: “On this significant day I did not want to stop asking for freedom and for respect for the fundamental rights of all Cubans.”

Beyond the Island, among the diaspora, the tradition has also taken root. On the other side of the Gulf, in Hialeah, the large Cuban community has built its own sanctuary inspired by El Rincón. Every December, hundreds of emigrants go there to thank favors granted and fulfill promises to the saint, replicating a tradition that, even far from Cuba, continues to mark Cuban faith and identity.

In Miami, Lourdes, 66, sent candles and purple outfits in advance so that her family, who lives in San Miguel del Padrón, could make the pilgrimage to El Rincón. The migrant, who has been in the United States for three years, where she arrived across the border, asked her relatives to pray for her before the image of Saint Lazarus. The prayer to the saint was brief and direct: “don’t deport me and give me residency.”