The Christ of Cleanses
In Villa de Limpias in Cantabria is the image of the Holy Christ of Agony or Christ of Cleans, this name is given by the wonderful thermal waters that flow from the area and that they called Aguas de Limpias, since the people who went there they were cleaned or purified in these waters. The town is not very large and has a parish church built in honor of San Pedro, on whose altar is the image of Cristo de Limpias or Cristo de la Agony.
The Christ is a representation of the meditation of the suffering of Jesus in his last hours on the Cross, his size is natural, that is, he has the size of a person with average height and his cross is 2.30 meters high. Jesus' arms are soft and relaxed, as if he were a man who reluctantly opens them and with the index and angular fingers in a position of blessing.
The face in this image is completely extraordinary, it has a particular beauty, with its gaze towards the sky, and depending on where the face is seen, the expression that you can notice is different, since it not only reflects pain, but also seems to be praying and contemplating God, his Father. On the sides of the image are the images of the Virgin Mary of Sorrows and that of Saint John the Evangelist.
History
The exact origin of this image is unknown; it appears to have come from Cadiz, from a church run by Franciscan priests. The church collapsed due to flooding, and was then taken to the Oratory of Don Diego de la Piedra, a member of the Order of Santiago. One of the stories surrounding this image tells of a time when a tsunami threatened the city of Cadiz, and the townspeople decided to carry the images from the church in procession. It is said that the waters stopped and receded as the Christ of Agony passed by.
The people saw in this a miracle of the image, so it was requested that it be placed in the Church of Cádiz for its veneration. Don Diego died in the year 1755, and before he died he left some specifications for the Villa where he was born, Limpias, in the Parish of San Pedro de Limpias, he left the money to pay for the elaboration of a larger and golden altarpiece to place the images of the Christ of the Agony, that of the Mother; MarÃa Dolorosa and San Juan Evangelista, with which the town became the Sanctuary of the Holy Christ of the Agony.
Enigma of the Christ of Cleans
In 1919 rumors began to circulate that incredible things were happening in the town of Limpias, that the image of Christ moved its eyes, that his body seemed to be alive, that he was sometimes seen paler and even sweated and bled. The Villa immediately began to fill with many pilgrims who came from many parts.
Father Antonio López came to the village in 1914 to install an electrical system on the main altar. He was alone, standing on a ladder on the wall behind the Christ. After finishing his work, he began to clean the image so it would look clearer under the lights. Looking directly at the image's face, he noticed its eyes were closed, and he began to have doubts, since he thought he had seen them open and looking up at the sky.
Suddenly he began to feel faint, until he lost his balance and fell to the ground, hitting himself hard with the fall, and when he opened his eyes again and continued to see that the image still had its eyes closed, he ran out of the room. the church until he met the sacristan of the same, who was going to ring the bells for the Angelus prayer, when he saw him he asked what was wrong and he told him everything, and he told him that it was not surprising because on more than one occasion the image had closed its eyes and then opened them again.
The father, who was also a teacher, decided to do a complete review of the image to see if it had any mechanism that made him close his eyes, he reviewed them very closely, touched them and pressed them in various ways, but determined that this image did not have no mechanism to make them close.
But it wasn't until 1920 that the miracles the image performed began to be made public. But in 1919, several missions were held in the town of Limpias. During one of them, during mass on the last day of the mission, a 12-year-old girl told her priest that Christ had closed his eyes. The priest thought the girl was very imaginative and ignored her comment, until other children present began to say the same thing.
When the mass ends, another priest who was there approaches him and tells him what is happening, and when they see the image his eyes were open, but at one point the parishioners began to shout for them to see him and his eyes were closed again, the The people present began to pray and cry and asked God on Their Knees for mercy for the miracle they were witnessing.
The temple was evicted and the priest climbed on a ladder to see the image up close, he touched her face and neck with a cloth and saw that she was perspiring, and when he passed his fingers directly they came out moist. On April 13, 1919, Palm Sunday, many people from society went to the altar with many doubts about what was happening, since they believed it was mass hysteria or hallucinations.
But when they got very close to the image they saw that it moved its eyes and mouth, they all knelt down and asked for forgiveness and mercy for having doubted. On April 20 of that same year, Easter Sunday, the religious sisters of the Daughters of the Cross saw that the mouth and eyes moved while they were praying the Holy Rosary.
These demonstrations in that year were made almost daily, so the church was always full of people who wanted to see the miracle of the image and since then there have always been testimonies that she moves her eyes at the time of mass, moves her lips , bleeds from his wounds, sweats, and even cries, even many people have stated that he has moved his head completely changing position. The residents of the town began to ask the authorities of the Church to have a date to make the festivity of this miracle.
After April 20 of that year, many chroniclers claimed that this miracle happened daily, placing this small town on one of the most visited sanctuary routes such as Lourdes or the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, with pilgrims arriving from many parts of the world. world. In a report by the Civil Guard Command Sergeant Jenaro Geijo, he wrote that kings, princes, infants, rich people, bishops, priests, doctors, engineers, in short, a large number of people, from all walks of life, had already paraded through the town. social classes, in Spain and in other countries.
It is said that Alfonso XIII visited the statue on July 31, 1919, as did Prince PÃo of Savoy. The Hungarian Royal Family also visited the statue in January 1923 and took a statue with them. When they returned to Hungary, they took it with them to pay homage to it. It is also part of their banner, at a time when it brought hope to their people, who had been ravaged by communism.
A newspaper of that time reported the miracle of the Christ of Cleans, and stressed that time passed and new manifestations of the Holy Christ of Agony were made, it was reported that he raised and lowered his eyes, and that he also moved them from right to left, his mouth moved and the expression on his face changed, he bled and sweated. In the following months, more than 100 pilgrims had passed through there and more than XNUMX declared that they had seen some of its movements.
All the testimonies were officially described, but these books were lost during the Spanish Civil War. A few pages were rescued from a fire at the time, and are preserved to this day in the parish archives. One of these witnesses was Dr. Maximiliano Orts, deputy delegate of Medicine for the Province of Oviedo; the testimony of a doctor was of great importance at that time.
In July 1919 he testified that he was amazed to see a trickle of blood running from behind the pavilion of his right ear, which as it ran down left the area where it passed clean and as it ran down it disappeared. This fact bothered him greatly as he was a doctor and he thought he might be falling into a hallucination that was not forgivable given his age and professional experience.
Dr. Gutiérrez de CossÃo, Consul of Honduras at that time also gave a testimony regarding the image, being with a large group of pilgrims all determined that the gaze of Christ was towards the exit of the pilgrims, it was a clear vision and perfect for all of them, and in a few moments they were able to appreciate that his face changed completely, his nose became finer, his lips contracted more and they turned blue, they parted and his cheeks looked more deteriorated, in his medical career he had never seen something So.
Just as these testimonies continued, so did miracles in people. Father Vicente RodrÃguez, 67, had suffered from hemiplegia for several years. He fell asleep with a holy image of Christ and woke up, healed. People who attended the church and had completely disbelieved in these miracles left in such a state of shock that it was embarrassing to look at them. Others had accidents upon leaving. Many cried, others left like fools, and others left screaming and begging for forgiveness.
All the information that was collected was sent in November 1920, privately, to the Holy See in the Vatican, where a canonical file was opened to investigate the phenomena that occurred. But it was forgotten over time since since it was sent nothing was ever determined, nor was there any news about it, and furthermore, the testimonies began to decrease in number.
That is why it is not known for sure if it was suggestion or collective hallucination, or if they were real events, but the truth is that it remained a study of a sociological phenomenon that was unprecedented. Many essays were written to try to give an answer to the phenomenon. Sculptors, woodcarvers, science teachers and even certified religious were sent to review the image well and rule out the supposed mechanism with which the eyes could move. For those who are more skeptical on these issues it is difficult to leave this as simple hallucinations.
Fray Luis Urbano, a theologian and doctor of physical sciences, wrote an essay called The Prodigies of Limpias in the Light of Theology and Science in 1920. He concluded that all the phenomena mentioned did not occur outside but within the person who sees them, that is, whoever is looking at the image. If science cannot determine what happens, then for theology it is a supernatural event. To date, all the events of the Christ of Limpias fall within the scope of mysticism and prodigies, and are phenomena that are difficult to explain.
Miracles and Cures
Of the many phenomena that were seen in Villa de Limpias, as for its Christ, there were many reports of supposed miraculous healings. In July 1920, doctors in the area reported more than 1000 cures, but in reality few of them took place in Limpias, and they were generally reports of pilgrims who were going back to their homes but who said or claimed to have touched the Christ of Limpias. .
The Bishop of Santander was the one who carried out the canonical process on July 20, 1920, to the Holy See, and a year later, certain plenary indulgences were granted for a period of seven years to all the faithful who came to visit the Holy Christ of Limpias. The Papal Nuncio visited the town of Limpias in 1921, knelt before the image, prayed before it, and at the same time inspected it from various angles. Upon leaving, he said that the church and the people of the town were impressed by what they saw, and he honored God's choice in his town to reveal himself through that image.
With the passing of the years the demonstrations began to cease, and in addition the Civil War left the holy Christ of Cleans in oblivion, but his devotion continued to endure over time for the people who saw all the phenomena, once the war ended They continued to make pilgrimages to the Holy Christ of the Agony where they continue to demonstrate that this image is truly spectacular.
Today, the image is cared for by the Pauline Fathers, who are in charge of the parish and the sanctuary, following in the footsteps of their predecessors and promoting the cult of the Holy Christ. The story is told of a journalist who went to cover this news and witnessed the Holy Christ moving his jaw as if pronouncing a few syllables. She closed her eyes tightly, thinking she was hallucinating, and wondering if the image had really told her something. She herself says that deep in her soul she clearly heard the word "Love me," which Christ had spoken to her.
For many, these wonders that the Lord performed in this image are given by the love we have for Christ, and seeing his agonizing image evokes in us that we must repent and have compassion in this time of so much pain and beg God to forgive us and show us his mercy, and that we truly love Christ just as he himself showed us his love when he died on a cross for the salvation of all of us.
The Capuchin monk Celestino de Pozuelo, on July 29, 1919, went to Limpias and stated in a story that the face of Christ had vivid expressions of pain, his body looked discolored as if he had truly suffered from whipping and he looked completely bathed in sweat and blood.
The Reverend ValentÃn Incio de Gijón visited the image on August 4, 1919, followed by many pilgrims who witnessed a miracle, with him were more than 40 people, 2 priests, 10 sailors and a woman who cried profusely. He wrote that on arrival he saw the Christ and that he seemed to be alive, his head was in the usual position in these images and his expression was natural.
But his eyes were very lively, and they could see that they were going in different directions. At one point, he stared at the sailors, then turned toward the sacristy. Then he looked down at them, and he could see that his gaze was sweet, warm, gentle, filled with a great expression of love, and that immediately they all knelt, wept, and worshipped Christ. His eyes continued to move and blink; tears could be seen in them, and his lips moved lightly as if he were speaking or praying. The woman who was in this group said that she was trying to move her arms, as if she wanted to get down from the cross.
In the same way, on September 15 of that year, another group of 18 priests and two bishops saw that the man's face looked sadder, and that his mouth was more ajar than usual, that his eyes were fixed on where the bishops and then they looked at the sacristy, and that his face had the expression of a man who wanted to live.
On December 24, 1919, the Father confessor of the Church of Pilar in Zaragoza, Don Manuel Cubi, went to see the Saint of Agony and also stated that it seemed that the image wanted to move from the cross, with more convulsive movements, that it raised its head and moved its eyes and closed its mouth, that he even managed to see a tongue and teeth, that for more than an hour he showed them everything he had suffered on the Cross for our salvation and how much he was suffering for abandoning his Cross.
Pilgrimages and Propagation around the world
With the many pilgrimages made to the province of Limpias to see the Holy Christ and all the reports recounting the marvelous phenomena occurring, the Spanish and foreign press were not far behind. By 1921, the number of pilgrims visiting the site had increased considerably, especially the number of foreigners, who came to considerably outnumber the Spanish pilgrims. The number of pilgrims even outnumbered those visiting the Sanctuary of Lourdes.
Many religious from Mexico, Peru, Manila, Cuba and other countries went to Limpias to see the holy Christ of the Agony, they saw the testimonies, and read the writings of the wonders that had happened, the testimonies exceeded 8 thousand and more than three a thousand of them were under oath, made by priests, bishops, lawyers, professors, doctors, engineers, officials, believers and even atheists.
Cuba
Don Manuel RuÃz y RodrÃguez, the first Bishop of Cuba, went to Limpias after visiting Rome. Upon his return, he wrote a pastoral letter to distribute to all the dioceses, in which he presented his account of the Holy Christ of Limpias and its miracles. In this letter, he recounted how he himself could see the image's eyes moving from left to right, and how its face changed from an expression of calm and peace to one of agony.
Devotion to Christ began in 1937, a Sanctuary was built on Calle Corrales 3, in Havana, the Crusade of Christ of Cleans Foundation was created for peace in the world and for the conversion of sinners. From that day on, a Holy Rosary was prayed at 7:16 p.m. every day in honor of Christ, and its festivity was established for July XNUMX.
Prayer to the Holy Christ of Cleans
This is the Prayer that was written for the Holy Christ of Cleans, in them it is requested that for all the pain he had suffered in his passion and death, have mercy on the souls of the people who are faithful to his devotion, it is a beautiful prayer that does not You must stop learning.
When praying we must think that Jesus with his open arms waits for our soul full of repentance to reach him, we must repent of all our sins, it is recommended that he confess that day and follow the teachings of the church, make his communion.
We must be apostles of Jesus Christ to spread his teachings, so that they receive the sacraments, we must prepare ourselves to receive Christ in the most difficult moments of our lives, but if we do not know him, as we will praise him, let us prepare to be with him through the prayer.
My beloved Lord Jesus Christ, that because of the pain that you had in your sacred shoulder wounds for having carried your heavy cross, because of the pain that you had in your back because of the sores that remained from the whipping that they gave you, and that when they took your tunic, skin fell off your body, because of the pain of your feet that were pierced with nails just like your hands, and because of the wound in your side, because of the pain you had when they put the crown of thorns on you.
For all the blood that you had to shed, for the immense pain that your Holy Mother the Virgin Mary felt when she saw you die, kneeling at the foot of your cross, today I ask you for peace in the world, so that you can save our souls and You can grant us the request that we make today (make your request), we also ask you for all those who suffer and die and who want to come to your side Beloved Jesus Christ. Amen.
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