“Will one not conclude, on reading its history, that it was God who really made the ‘Sameiro’ appear in blustery times for the Church, making it the ‘Lighthouse and guide of Catholic life in Portugal’?”[1]
Newsroom (01/01/2022 11:45, Gaudium Press) May 28, 1834: The expulsion of Religious Orders from the Kingdom of Portugal is decreed; 577 religious houses, where 12,980 people lived, 7,000 of them friars and 5,980 nuns with their educators and maids, are suppressed.
What would have happened to this nation known as “Land of Santa Maria”, due to its devotion to the Mother of God and for its heroic sailors who spread the cross of Christ around the world? Liberalism, Positivism, Regalism, words so in vogue in the 19th century, in Portugal were not mere cunning words, but doctrines that were part of a conspiracy to destroy and despoil the Church.
Now, when wickedness seemed to triumph, an ancient but deeply rooted devotion would light up like a beacon in the midst of the storm for the Portuguese people.
The Immaculate Conception[2]
In the cradle of the nation – the city of Braga – the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, already for two centuries, was recognized as a truth of Faith. It was in 1637 that D. Sebastião de Matos de Noronha called a Diocesan Synod and, in union with the Chapter and the high dignitaries, made an oath that forever in the Braga Diocese the faith in the Immaculate Conception would be kept.
A few years later, on March 25, 1646, the kingdom was consecrated to Our Lady of the Conception and King John IV offered her the Portuguese crown, acclaiming her as Queen of Portugal.
And this bond with the Immaculate Conception enabled the Lusitanians to go through the dreadful century of liberalism that ravaged their nation. The Catholic reaction emerged in the person of a tireless preacher of devotion to Mary, Father Martinho Antônio Pereira da Silva, who did only what was his duty: to be “salt of the earth and light of the world”.
When His Holiness Pius IX declared, on December 8, 1854, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the zealous Father Martinho celebrated, in the midst of the atheism that raged in the country, the dogmatic definition with all due pomp. And to crown his desire to honor the Mother of God, while walking with a friend on a remote and inhospitable hill, the idea of placing a monument in honor of the Immaculate Conception came to his mind. After numerous difficulties, he managed to get a 3 meter high image, sculpted in a single piece of marble by Emídio Carlos Amatucci, placed on August 12, 1869 on that hill called Sameiro.
“A rallying point for all who fight the good fight”
Located geographically in the center of the Entre-Douro-e-Minho region, Sameiro became a blessed place, chosen by the Mother of God to make her dwelling there.
On July 18, 1870, less than a year after the image was enthroned on Mount Sameiro, Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of Pontifical Infallibility. The people of Braga, then, rejoiced again in beautiful ceremonies, and the indefatigable Father Martinho proposed, in order to mark forever this victory of the Holy Church, the construction of a chapel in honor of the Immaculate Conception. The first stone was solemnly laid on August 31, 1873.
“The germ of a great work was laid, which appears, in this way, as the profession of faith, as adherence to the doctrine of the Church, as a refusal, consequently, to adhere to the positivistic and materialistic denials of the time; Sameiro becomes the point of convergence of all those who fight the good fight.“[3]
This temple was erected near the monument of the Immaculate, which had been erected years before, and its inauguration was celebrated on August 29, 1880, accompanied by a procession with the image of Our Lady of Sameiro, the work of Eugenio Maocegnali, which had been blessed by Blessed Pius IX.
Ten years later, the number of believers and pilgrims was so great that a larger church had to be built; so, on August 31, 1890, during the traditional annual pilgrimage, Dom Antônio José de Freitas Honorato laid the first stone of the new temple. Unfortunately, due to the political upheavals that upset Portugal in the early 20th century and that followed the fall of the Monarchy, the completion of the sacred building took 40 years.
However, Sameiro had already become a beacon of devout souls, despite the upheavals and, as Dr. Guilherme Braga da Cruz well observed: “precisely to mark this exchange of gifts between Heaven and Earth, between Christ and his Church – an exchange of gifts that has the Immaculate Mother of God as its fulcrum – a monument was raised on top of Sameiro and a temple was built, which would soon become one of the greatest centers of devotion to the Virgin in all Christendom.”[4]
By Danilo César Cabral
Compiled by Camille Mittermeier
[1] FERNANDO LEITE, S. J. História do Sameiro. Braga: Brotherhood of Our Lady of Sameiro. 2004, p. 10.
[2] Subsidies extracted from: CARLOS DE AZEREDO, Antonio. Sameiro, Bom Jesus and Falperra. Barcelos: Caminhos Romanos, 2006.
[3] COELHO, Constantino. Echoes of Sameiro. 1952. In: FERNANDO LEITE, S. J. História do Sameiro. Braga: Confraria de Nossa Senhora do Sameiro, 2004, p. 10.
[4] BRAGA DA CRUZ, Guilherme. Sameiro in the light of the dogmas commemorated at its foundation: the Immaculate Conception and Pontifical Infallibility. Separata das Atas do Congresso de Estudos do I Centenário do Santuário de Nossa Senhora do Sameiro. Braga, 1964.
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