ACI Prensa Staff, Jan 16, 2024 / 18:00 pm
More than 2.7 million people gathered in the city of Barquisimeto in Lara state, Venezuela, on Sunday, Jan. 14, to accompany the image of the Divine Shepherdess Virgin in a procession, reported state governor Adolfo Pereira in post on X.
Pereira commented that there was a very positive atmosphere at the gathering, “where peace, calm, and the religiosity of the people reigned.”
According to catholic.net, the devotion traces back to 1703 in Seville, Spain, when a Capuchin friar saw the Virgin Mary dressed as a shepherdess holding a shepherd’s crook. She was surrounded by some sheep, but one that had strayed was pursued by a wolf, which the Archangel Michael dispatched with an arrow.
The friar commissioned a painting depicting what he saw and began to spread devotion to Our Lady under this avocation, which eventually was carried to Spanish America and to Venezuela in particular.