Marian Year Jubilee of Our Lady of La Junquera
2022 will mark 475 years of the first documentary mention of “Santa María de la Junquera”( ecclesiast visit of 1547 ).The Marian Advocation around which the village of Cee will grow. An advocation that professes a great devotion in our parish and which is kept in the hearts of many devotees who live abroad.
The legend tells that a foreign boat in the middle of a tempest was looking for shelter
at our estuary. After that, the sailors checked that there was”something”that held the boat back preventing the boat to continue its journey. Thus, they decided to leave in “the Xunqueira”( reed bed) a statue of the Virgin with the Child that later would be carried by some fishers and which would be known as “ Virgin of La Junquera “
The loss of the primitive statue and the church on 21 April 1809 by the marshal Ney’s French troops during the Independence War entails a blow for this village. These sad events join even more its people and thus, with the general effort of all of them, apart from the special private donations of some private citizens and the labour union of fishers, the church could be rebuilt step by step. In 1812, the new statue of the Virgin of La Junquera is made in Santiago, the one that is venerated nowadays.
On the occasion of the great devotion that is mantained to Our Lady of La Junquera and after conversations with his excellency archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, Mr. Julián Barrio Barrio, the canonical coronation for the statue of the Virgin was conceded on 1 May 2022 to the mentioned date.This Jubilee is awarded by the Apostolic Penitentiary of the Holy See.
