The Immaculate Conception and the miracle of Empel – Fame

you Know why December 8 is the feast of the Immaculate Conception?.

The history can be traced back to other times in Spain, when miraculously the waters of a river in the Netherlands were frozen, preventing the massacre of Spanish soldiers that they were surrounded and were waiting for the death on the Mount of Empel, the Netherlands.

The Immaculate Conception of Los Venerables, painted by Murillo in 1678.

According to chronicles of the history, a December 7, 1585, during the Eighty-Year War, the Thirds of the Spanish infantry were surrounded by several enemy ships on the island of Bommel the Netherlands. ( Flanders, now Belgium belonged to the Spanish Crown).

Without defense, ragged and hungry they did not give up and went up into the mountain of Empel. Had little chance of surviving the battle and even had thought of collective suicide.

A Spanish soldier was found buried in a table with the image of the Immaculate Conception and placed it on a makeshift altar. Bobadilla your boss asked you to all pray with a salve.

That same night a miracle happened inexplicable that I avoid the massacre of the Spanish army and brought them victory (the Meuse river froze and the Spanish troops were able to march over the ice to attack the squad Dutch and exit the purse seine).

The virgin was proclaimed patroness of the Thirds of Flanders and then of the Spanish Infantry.

The virgin that appears in this note was painted by Murillo, who created a hugely successful formula for the representation of the Immaculate conception, with the Virgin dressed in white and blue, the hands crossed on the chest, stepping on the moon and with the gaze directed towards the sky. At the same time gives a clear impetus ascending the ranks in a space of heaven is filled with light, clouds and angels. So her two iconographic traditions: that of the Immaculate conception and the Assumption.( Museum of the Prado – Madrid).

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