"The body was afterwards secretly moved to the Cave of Amecameca, where
it awaits the glorious day of triumph for saints and confusion to
reprobates. Many miracles are related of the saint, but more than for
these his name will be forever glorious in our country for his great
virtues, and above all for the grand services which the order he founded
for the glory of God had given to the Mexicans during more than three
hundred years."
A further account confirms the devotion with which the Indians,
encouraged by the _padres_, preserved the relics of the holy father.
"In this cave are guarded, night and day, by the Dominican monks,
certain relics of this friar: a leather _celicio_, a coarse and rough
tunic, and two chasubles of native linen cloth, in which the servant of
God said mass; and on the other side is a great box, locked, which
serves as the sepulchre of a wooden Christ.... This sainted man died in
the year 1534 and was buried in the convent of Tlalmanalco, where his
body remained untouched for the space of more than thirty years, since
when it has not appeared, nor does any one know where it is nor who
disturbed it." In fact, for fifty years the Indians of Amecameca guarded
the relics with great devotion, but in secret, passing them from hand to
hand, but without giving them up either to Franciscans or Dominicans,
until in 1884 they were discovered by the vicar, who collected them and
put them in this chapel of the Sacro Monte.
The Indians of Amecameca and of all the surrounding pueblos greatly
reverenced, with strange ceremonies, an image of Christ made by the
Indians of Amecameca, and carefully preserved by them year after year. A
legend states that long ago certain muleteers who were carrying this
image to a southern town, missed the mule upon whose pack it had been
placed. When the mule was discovered he was standing quietly in the cave
upon the sacred mountain, surrounded by all the people of the town, who,
conceiving the Christ had chosen their cave for his abode, purchased the
image from the muleteers, and constructed for it in that spot a shrine,
where it still remains after three centuries. A great pilgrimage is made
to the shrine on the top of the sacred Mount. Every year, in Holy Week
and on Ash Wednesday, the image is brought down to the parish church.
The annual fair is held at this time in the Market Place, doubtless a
continuation of some ancient Aztec festival in honor of the return of
the Sun. All the country around assembles, and the culmination of the
feast is on Good Friday, when the Christ is returned to his shrine on
the mountain.
The good Viceroy Velasco died in 1564, having governed the country for
fourteen years. Both Mexicans and Spaniards sincerely mourned his loss,
giving him the affectionate title of the Father of the country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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