Revista Encontros Teológicos

15

Authors: Paulo Jonas dos Santos Junior, Elon Saúde Caires

The present study reflects on the 300 year jubilee of the apparition of Our Lady of Aparecida. It is a descriptive-exploratory bibliographical research. In the year 1717, three fishermen in the river Paraíba, throwing their nets, first took the body and then the head of the Image of Our Lady of the Conception. Since then, devotion has grown considerably and there are several reports of graces that were reached by those who prayed before this Image, which became known as Our Lady Aparecida. In the year 2017, it completes 300 years of the appearance of the Image, and the National Shrine of Aparecida promotes the Jubilee “300 years of blessings”, with works of evangelization, that aims to prepare the faithful for the tricentenary that will be celebrated in October of the same year, Including the pilgrim visit of the Image of Our Lady Aparecida to the dioceses of the whole of Brazil.

19

Authors: Wellington Cristiano da Silva, Luiz Harding Chang

The devotion to Our Lady of the Conception Apparition borns of the faith experience of Brazilian people. The image of Aparecida was found in the waters of the Paraíba river in 1717 and it has a prophetic message from heaven. Transcending the purely iconographic aspect, there is a theological meaning in the small image of the Black Virgin that we are able to interpret in the light of Christian revelation. Besides being a locus theologicus, Aparecida is also an anthropological locus. The people read in Aparecida their own life. A sign of hope for the pilgrims, the image of Our Lady Aparecida, in its three hundred year trajectory, has much more to tell us and to teach us.