Posted on 10/31/2026 5:39:18 PM PDT by ebb tide
Colombia: On the Verge of War
In 2008, Colombia was on the verge of going to war with its neighbors, Ecuador and Venezuela. The cause of the conflict was a raid conducted within Ecuador’s borders by the Colombian military on March 1, 2008, as part of its “Operation Phoenix.” The Colombian government was attempting to eliminate a cell of Marxist terrorists, which strove to destabilize their government and sought immunity from reprisals a few miles from the international border. Colombia’s military strike resulted in the deaths of more than twenty members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), including their second-in-command, Raúl Reyes. FARC has been in existence since the 1960s and, in addition to being a political revolutionary group, is heavily involved in the drug trade.
This action was authorized by Colombia’s president, Álvaro Uribe, and led to increased tension between Colombia and Ecuador. Ecuador and its ally, Venezuela, then moved troops to their borders with Colombia in preparation for war. (The Colombian government had discovered the location of the Marxist revolutionaries’ hideout by intercepting a phone call made by Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, to Raúl Reyes.)
As tensions increased and war was about to break out, the Colombian president called upon his staff to pray the Rosary as a means of ending the tensions and bringing about peace. The Rosary was prayed in the chapel of the presidential palace and dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary of Chiquinquirá, the patroness of Colombia and widely venerated in Ecuador and Venezuela. This title of the Blessed Virgin Mary is associated with a venerated image in the northern Andes region of Colombia.
Miraculously, two days after the Rosary was prayed, the presidents of Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela publicly shook hands on March 7, 2008, during the Group of Rio Summit – in a show of public reconciliation of the three countries – and war was avoided.
A Brief History of the Venerated Image
In 1562, a Spanish painter named Alonso de Narváez painted a portrait of the Virgin of the Rosary on a homespun piece of cotton woven by the Indians. Painting in tempera, he used mineral pigments from the soil and organic juices from local herbs and flowers.
The portrait was placed in a chapel with a roof that leaked; and in time the humidity, air, and sun had damaged the painting, leaving the subject unrecognizable. In 1577, the worn painting was moved to Chiquinquirá and left abandoned in a room that had formerly been a family oratory. Eight years later, a pious Spaniard from Seville refurbished the chapel and enshrined the faded painting in it. According to tradition, on December 26, 1586 the painting was miraculously restored. Scratches and holes in the cotton were gradually sealed and overlayed by light and color, and the image stood out again, having recovered its vivacity and brightness.
Pope St. Pius X authorized the Canonical Coronation of the image on January 9, 1910; and Pope Pius XI raised Our Lady’s sanctuary to the status of minor basilica on August 18, 1927.
An article at Aleteia.org describes two miracles associated with the image of Our Lady of Chiquinquirá, one from Colombia in 1586 and another from Venezuela in 1709.
Note: We are grateful to Fr. Michael Rodríguez’s sermon on the Holy Rosary in which he mentioned these two miracles. You can hear that sermon at the Recover and Restore Tradition podcast hosted by the St. Vincent Ferrer Foundation.
A mining cave-in occurred on August 5, 2010[1] at the San José copper–gold mine in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, trapping 33 miners 2,300 feet underground and 3 miles from the mine’s entrance.
The San José mine had a history of geological instability; and its owner, the San Esteban Mining Company, had a long record of safety violations and had ignored warnings from the Chilean Safety Administration. This negligence contributed to the collapse and the subsequent rescue operation.
Access to the depths of the mine was by a long helical roadway. When the collapse occurred, one man, an ore-truck driver, was able to get out, but a group of 33 men were trapped deep inside. Initially, the trapped miners tried to escape through ventilation shafts, but the ladders required by safety regulations were missing. So they were forced to retreat to an emergency room referred to as the “refuge.”
It is interesting to note that Our Lady used the same word at Fatima to describe Herself, “My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God.”
The Search
Initial search attempts failed because each route was blocked by fallen rock or threatened by ongoing rock movement. A second collapse the next day forced rescuers to use heavy machinery while trying to gain access via a ventilation shaft. Concerns that additional attempts would cause further geological movement halted attempts to reach the trapped miners through any of the existing shafts, so other means were sought.
After the state-owned mining company Codelco took over the rescue efforts from the mine’s owners, exploratory boreholes were drilled in an attempt to locate the miners. On August 22, 17 days after the accident, a borehole broke through to the refuge room. When the drill was withdrawn, a note was found taped to a drill bit retrieved to the surface: “Estamos bien en el Refugio los 33” (“We are well [and] in the Refuge [all] 33 [of us]”). Hours later, video cameras sent down the borehole captured the first grainy, black-and-white, silent images of the miners.
Although the emergency food supplies stocked in the shelter were intended to last only two or three days, through careful rationing, the men made their meager resources last for two weeks, only running out just before they were discovered. As a side note, the eldest miner became the religious leader of the group and organized a chapel with a shrine containing statues of saints, while another miner organized daily prayers.
On August 23, the first voice contact was made with the miners, and doctors reported that the miners had been provided with a 5% glucose solution and a drug to prevent stomach ulcers caused by food deprivation. Delivery of solid food began a few days later.
The Rescue
The Chilean government developed a comprehensive rescue plan modeled on a successful 2002 U.S. mine rescue, which had used a “rescue pod” or capsule to winch trapped miners to the surface one by one. Chilean rescue crews planned to use at least three drilling technologies to create a bore hole wide enough to raise the miners in a custom-designed rescue pod as quickly as possible. The managing director of one of the companies involved in the rescue operation said that “the mine is old and there is concern of further collapses,” and that “the rescue methodology therefore has to be carefully designed and implemented.”
The rescue operation was a multinational effort which included the United States space agency NASA. The large escape borehole was drilled using several types of equipment provided by multiple international corporations. The men were then winched to the surface one at a time in a specially built capsule. Although Chilean officials played down the risks of the rescue, the miners still needed to be alert during the ascent in case of problems – the capsule had an escape hatch with a safety device to allow the passenger to lower himself back down if the capsule became stuck.
The extraction of the miners took about 22.5 hours; and, with few exceptions, the miners were in good medical condition. All but two of the men went home within 48 hours of their rescue, and by October 19 all had left the hospital.
The Power of the Rosary
Once the ordeal was covered by international news, Pope Benedict XVI personally blessed 33 rosaries and had them sent to the miners, so they could pray the Rosary and invoke the help and intercession of Most Holy Mary. The blessed rosaries were sent down the small shaft to the men, and they began to pray the Rosary and wear the rosaries around their necks. Miraculously, all 33 men survived and were rescued out of the mine, contrary to expectations, on October 13 – the 93rd anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima – 69 days after the mine collapsed.
Our Lady of the Rosary of Fatima, pray for us!
[1] Providentially, August 5 is the Feast of Our Lady of the Snows. In a dream sent to both the Pope and a wealthy Roman patron, Our Lady requested that a Church be built in Her honor in Rome. She had snow miraculously fall on the site She selected (everyone knows Rome is insufferably hot in August). It is on this spot that the greatest Marian church now stands: the major basilica Santa Maria Maggiore. Based on private visions of mystics, some have speculated that this church will serve a crucial role in the fulfillment of Our Lady’s requests at Fatima. Is this the church in which St. Jacinta saw the Pope praying before Our Lady? Will the Pope one day consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in this church?
At present, answers to these questions remain in the Providence of God hidden from us.
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I find it harder every day to tell the difference between Catholicism and Islam.
How so?
How so?
This is a Catholic caucus.
As we say in AA: take the cotton out of your ears and shove it into your mouth. Ask the Mother of Jesus to present herself to you. Then watch out. It might be a rose. It could be anything, but you will know when she reaches out to you.
Another way to prove this a lie, is to visit any Catholic Church for one hour. See what happens. Prove me wrong.
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