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100 Years since the Escrivás’ Pilgrimage to Torreciudad
September 17, 2004
In 1930 Saint Josemaría wrote in his personal notes: “My Lady and my Mother! You gave me the grace of my vocation; you saved my life when I was a child; you have listened to me so many times!” He was referring to the miraculous cure his parents had obtained from our Lady in 1904, when he was just two years old. Andrés Vazquez de Prada, one of Saint Josemaría’s biographers, tells the story: “Around that time he came down with a serious illness, possibly an acute infection, and nearly died. One evening, Dr. Ignacio Camps Valdovinos, the family doctor, came to visit the child. He was an experienced physician with a good clinical eye, but in those days there was no way to stop the course of a virulent infection. There came a moment when Dr. Camps had to say to Don José, ‘I’m sorry, Pepe, he won’t make it through the night.’
“With much faith, the parents went on asking God to cure their son. Doña Dolores, with great confidence, began a novena to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, and the couple promised our Lady that if their child recovered, they would take him on a pilgrimage to her shrine of Torreciudad.”
Years afterwards, Esperanza Corrales, a neighbour, recalled the sequel: “There was a sudden crisis in the illness and little Josemaría survived in spite of the doctors’ gloomy prognostications. When he was well again, the Escrivás, with the baby in their arms, fulfilled their promise of going as pilgrims to thank Our Lady of Torreciudad.”
“On horseback, along winding mountain trails, they travelled the fourteen long miles. Doña Lola, riding sidesaddle and carrying the boy in her arms, was frightened by all the jolting they experienced between the crags and deep gorges which plunge to the Cinca River. Perched on a steep hilltop is the shrine of Torreciudad. There, at the feet of our Lady, they offered the child in thanksgiving. Recalling this episode years later, Doña Dolores repeated more than once to her son, “My son, it must be for something great that our Lady left you in this world, because you were more dead than alive.”
Josemaría’s parents appealed to Our Lady of Torreciudad because of the strong local devotion which existed to her under that title. A recent article in the local newspaper El Heraldo de Huesca described this popular devotion.
The shrine of Torreciudad is located on a promontory above the River Cinca, in beautiful countryside. Access used to be difficult, whether on foot or on horseback. Ever since the year 1084, generation after generation of the villagers from the surrounding area have kept up the custom of pilgrimages to the spot. Frequently whole villages would go in procession, carrying banners. When they reached the shrine there was usually time set aside for confessions, followed by Holy Mass. In the afternoon there would be Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and the recitation of the Rosary. These pilgrimages had a family character as well as a penitential one, because whole families would come together, thus handing on the tradition from one generation to the next.
Devotion to Our Lady of Torreciudad goes back many centuries in the region. Historians say that the origins of the ancient shrine and its statue are completely unknown. It is supposed to date from the year 1084, when, after the area had been liberated from Arab rule, the statue was found and the shrine built. It is a dark statue similar to that of Our Lady of Montserrat, and there is a legend that our Lady appeared to some woodcutters from Bolturina, and told them that she wished to be venerated at that spot.
Torreciudad is situated 24 kilometres north of Barbastro, next to El Grado Reservoir. Mediaeval documents use the name “Civitas” for the defensive bulwark built by the Arab invaders against the Christians who were pushing down from the north to reconquer the lands taken from them by the Arabs; and it is from this that the name “Turris Civitatis”, or Torreciudad, was later derived.
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