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Views from the back of the hermitage: In the distance, some fishermen who by chance could find a small image of the Virgin in the sea or witness a Marian Apparition (left). The sign in the right suggests that this may be a favorite location to cast the ashes of the departed into the sea: to send the remains of exiles back home (right). |
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Hermitage of Our Lady of Charity, Miami, Florida, 2007. |
The "national shrine" in Miami is a modestly sized hermitage next to the sea which is said to be facing the island. The structure has an abstract conical shape that evokes the contours of the Virgin's effigy. A reproduction of the iconographical motif of the three fishermen in a canoe to whom the Virgin "appeared" at sea can be found over the entrance door. Six columns symbolize the six provinces of Cuba.
Inside, under the altar, is the first stone laid down on the foundation of the hermitage. As if a relic, or a fetish, that foundational stone contains land, sand and stones from the different provinces of Cuba smelted with water from a raft in which fifteen people died at sea trying to escape the island. Such a "charged" stone is in some ways evocative of the fundamentos ("foundations" or sacred stones) in which the presence of the Afro-Cuban orishas (deities or forces) is materialized in the Santeria tradition. |
