Almost 300 years ago, the inhabitants of Lanzarote watched the red mountains of Timanfaya with terror. The volcanic eruptions began to devastate a large part of the island, while the residents tried to save their homes. The municipality of Tinajo was threatened between 1730 and 1736, when the lava covered a large part of the island. The residents, clinging to the last hope, implored the Virgin. She stopped the lava and saved Tinajo. The miracle has been celebrated since then, for almost three centuries, and now, in 2010, thousands of people continue to pilgrimage to the hermitage of Mancha Blanca to kneel before the image of the Holy Patroness of Lanzarote.
Although the Virgin of Los Dolores has been "always venerated by the church", as explained by the parish priest of Tinajo, Santiago Quintana, in Lanzarote it has a special meaning because of what her miracle implied. We must take a leap into the past to explain where the great veneration of the people of Lanzarote for the Virgin came from. It goes back to the time of the volcanic eruptions and the arrival in Tinajo of a Franciscan, the "Guardian Father", who asked the people to take refuge in the protection of Los Dolores, whose feast had just been granted by Pope Clement XII to Spain in 1735. The first time this religious festival was celebrated was on September 15, 1736.
At that time, the people lived in fear because the lava was rapidly approaching the town and threatened to destroy it. The Franciscan proposed to the residents to go in procession to Mancha Blanca carrying the image of the Virgin of Los Dolores, which at that time was kept in the church of San Roque.
The residents arrived at the mountain of Guiguán, where they promised the Virgin to build a hermitage if she managed to stop the waves of fire that came from the volcanoes. "One of the men approached the lava and put a wooden cross. There, the lava stopped", explains the parish priest Santiago Quintana. All of Tinajo shouted "miracle" in unison. The town had been saved from burning.
Unfulfilled promise
However, time passed and the residents of Tinajo forgot their promise, they forgot to build a hermitage for the "miraculous" Virgin. "The story goes that a shepherd girl named Juana Rafaela was visited by a woman in black when she was in the field and told her to remind the people of the promise they made to the Virgin in her day. The little girl ran to tell her parents but they did not believe her and even scolded her", says the current parish priest of Tinajo.
Days later, the girl had another apparition. "A woman in black appeared to her again and left her hand engraved on her back so that the residents would believe her", says the former Minister of Culture, Chana Perera. Then they believed her. However, this girl of only 10 years old did not know who the lady who appeared to her on the mountain was. "They showed her images and when she saw the Virgin of Los Dolores she was speechless. It was her", says Perera.
The construction of the church
Therefore, the people began to build the church. "Since then, the hermitage has always been open, except when it has undergone renovations", says the parish priest. And the veneration of the Virgin has survived time and history, according to Santiago Quintana, because "the human being carries within himself a transcendent dimension". "The Virgin represents something very beautiful in Lanzarote, and it is the sense of mother, the mother of Los Dolores, a sense of motherhood. That is why it has lasted over time", theorizes this religious man.
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