The centuries-old image of the “Nuestra Señora del Carmen, La Limpia,” also known as the “Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, The Clean One,” has been restored.
The image will be installed on the altar of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish-Recoletos in Cebu City on Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021, feast of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.
A report on the local daily SunStar said the image underwent restoration for about five months and left the parish in July for the first time since the 1700s.
The report said that based on church records, the image was sculpted in 1718 and is considered the oldest Marian image in Cebu City.
It bore the original title of “La Limpia Concepcion,” but after the 1854 Declaration of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, its title changed to “Nuestra Señora del Carmen.”
During the Second World War, a bomb fell inside the Recoletos church, but it did not explode. Cebuanos attributed the miracle to the protection of the Nuestra Señora del Carmen.
Parish priest Joseph Panaligan, OAR, said the episcopal coronation for the patroness has already been approved by Archbishop Jose Palma of Cebu and will take place on Jan. 8, 2022.
An episcopal coronation is an act of a local bishop or archbishop recognizing the veneration of a Marian image under a specific title being venerated in a certain locality.
