Virgin of Suyapa enthronement at Divine Mercy

By Christine Bordelon
Clarion Herald

The Blessed Mother is known by many names – such as Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Guadalupe – honoring the places she has appeared.

On May 29, the local Honduran community welcomed its patron saint, Our Lady of Suyapa, with a procession, Mass and enthronement at Divine Mercy Parish in Kenner. Archbishop Gregory Aymond concelebrated the Mass with Father Robert Cooper, pastor; Father Luis Duarte, parochial vicar; and other Hispanic priests on the feast day of the Holy Trinity.

Father Duarte, a native of Colombia, used his homily in Spanish to relate a history of the Virgin of Suyapa that he first discovered while serving at St. Clement of Rome Parish in Metairie. He said God has revealed his divine life, love and mercy in simple ways to simple people throughout history.

His research of the Central American Mary – known as “La Morenita” or the dear, dark one – uncovered how she first appeared in 1747 to peasant Alejandro Colindres and his nephew Lorenzo Martinez while farming far from home. They had stopped to sleep on the roadside after a long day’s work, and Colindres couldn’t sleep because a hard object had nestled inside a shawl-pillow he had made.


Each time he removed the object, it returned. Frustrated, he stuffed it into his bag and didn’t realize, until daylight, what kept him awake – a tiny image of Mary, with a crown of 12 stars, kneeling in prayer.
When Colindres brought the image to his mother, Ana Caraballo, she immediately built an altar to honor the Blessed Mother. Caraballo would take the image to local peasants and laborers who were ill and ask for intercessory healing, Father Duarte said.

But it wasn’t until a military officer, Captain Joseph de Celaya, asked for her intercession and promised to build a chapel in her honor if she cured his illness, that the devotion to her spread. By 1780, the chapel was built and consecrated in Suyapa.


“It is how Our Lady of Suyapa was revealed – a simple image of wood revealed to a simple, tired man who was sowing corn, who gave the image to his mother, who built an altar and started a devotion in their home,” Father Duarte said.

Our Lady of Suyapa was declared patroness of Honduras by Pope Pius XI in 1925. In 1982, she was declared the patroness of Central America. A purported appearance by the virgin to a small army of Honduran soldiers – giving them hope to defeat a Salvadoran invasion in 1969 – was considered a miracle.

“It was so beautiful,” Father Duarte said. “The simplicity of God. He always chose the simplest people to manifest his love. In a simple way, God can transform and save all humanity. That is the revelation of the Holy Trinity.”

Loyal Suyapa committee
When Father Duarte arrived as the first Hispanic priest to serve at Divine Mercy, members of the Virgin of Suyapa committee originally formed at the former Nativity of Our Lord Parish expressed an interest in obtaining a Virgin of Suyapa statue and having it enthroned in the Kenner church, especially for Hondurans in the area.

Father Duarte later learned how Hondurans comprise the majority of Latinos in Kenner and that New Orleans is the second-largest home for Hondurans in the world.


“I saw a niche in the church that was empty, and I thought it would be great to have an image of the Virgin there so people would know she was with them always,” Father Duarte said. He approached Father Cooper with the request from parishioners.

Father Cooper agreed to the statue and wanted it to stand out because the new church is immense. By August 2020, committee member Guillermo Padilla contacted self-taught, Honduran-born artist Don Roman Sanchez Diaz to craft the image, its display case and stand. Diaz used cedar from the Patuca Reserve Basin, which he painted in acrylics, for the statue; cedar (some more than 110 years old) and mahogany for the display case; and mahogany for the stand.

Fundraisers were held to help pay for the statue, and a generous donor offered to ship the statue from Honduras by cargo boat, Father Duarte said.

Divine Mercy’s statue is believed to be the largest replica in the world – standing at 20 inches high. It is bigger than the original in the Basilica of Suyapa in Tegucigalpa, Father Duarte said.

Parishioners said having the Virgin image at their church is an answer to their perseverance and prayers and will help them become closer to God.

“She is the patron of Honduras, and we are happy to be here,” Lily Umanzor and Gladys Yolanda Borjas said at the enthronement Mass May 29.

“Maybe this is going to be the center of Our Lady of Suyapa in the United States,” Father Duarte said. “I hope that this becomes a pilgrimage site and that she is going to add miracles in this parish, so we become a sanctuary of Our Lady of Suyapa outside Honduras.”

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