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| Our glorious, powerful Mother |
The Woman with Two Wings of a Great Eagle
And there were given to the woman,
two
wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the desert to her
place
– Apocalypse 12:14
“El Panecillo - Bread Loaf Hill - emerges with
the aluminum statue of the Virgin of Quito in all of its 134 1/2 feet, high from
the south side of Quito Colonial. The hill itself rises at 9,900 feet or 3,016
meters above sea level.
“In 1976 this monument emerged with a replica of
the sculpture created of 7,000 pieces of aluminum, the largest of its kind in
the world.
“The only figure in the world of the Virgin with
wings...she comes to us from the 18th
century inspired by the description of her in the Book of the Apocalypse.
“Shungoloma
is the original name given in Quichua, which means "hill of the
heart." How fitting that the Spanish claimed it for the Immaculate Heart
of Mary!
“Other names have been attached to her, but the
Virgin of Quito rings the most common. Everyone
in Quito knows that it replicates the original of Bernardo Legarda. That
explains why she's also known as the Legarda Virgin.”
Before my family and I went in Ecuador this past
June I didn’t understand why a statue of the Virgin Mary would have wings. People
don’t turn into angels and get wings once in heaven, so naturally I went to the
Internet to try to figure out who created the original 18th century statue
and why she has wings. Once I found the answer I was astounded that there
aren’t more statues of Our Mother with wings because she (with wings) is
incredibly beautiful.
