ACI Prensa Staff, Apr 3, 2023 / 17:00 pm
As Holy Week processions began in Spain, three wooden carvings of the Virgin Mary were damaged by fire in three separate incidents. The cause of each of the fires appears to be accidental.
Statues of the Blessed Mother in Spain are typically clothed in an ornate mantle. Over the weekend, two caught fire from a candle and one from a probable short circuit.
The organizers of a Holy Week procession in the town of Chiclana in Cadiz province reported that “due to a piece of wick falling from a candle,” the mantle of Holy Mary of the Disconsolate “caught on fire” March 31, the Friday before Holy Week, known in Spain as the Friday of Sorrows, which commemorates the seven sorrows of the Mother of Jesus as the passion of her son approaches.
The mantle was totally destroyed and “the polychromy of her cheek and right hand” were damaged by the blaze, the organizers stated, but the fire did not affect the image of Jesus the Father of the Afflicted, “thanks to the prompt intervention” of those assisting with the veneration of the image.