October 12
Saints of the Day...and Events

Columbus Day:
    1492 - Christopher Columbus's expedition makes landfall in the Caribbean. The explorer believes he has reached East Asia.

    In Spain is celebrated "El Dia de la Hispanidad", " the discovery of the New World", "the discovery of America", with the Patroness, Our Lady of the Pillar of Zaragoza, or Saragossa.

Our Lady of the Pillar of Saragossa, or Zaragoza, Spain    

    After the crucifixion , resurrection and ascension of Jesus, his Apostles began to spread the message he left throughout Israel and shortly thereafter, through the Roman empire.

    One of these Apostles, James (the Greater), reportedly traveled as far west as Spain to the village of Zaragoza or Saragossa in north east Spain. While James was there, he became disheartened because of the failure of his mission. Tradition holds that while he was deep in prayer Jesus' Blessed Mother appeared to him and gave him a small wooden statue of herself and a column of jasper wood brought by angels, and instructed him to build a church in her honor:

    "This place is to be my house, and this image and column shall be the title and altar of the temple that you shall build... and the people of this land will honor greatly my Son Jesus"

    The jasper column and the wooden statue can still be seen at a church that houses them. About a year after the apparition James arranged to build a small chapel in Mary's honor, the first Church ever dedicated to the honor of the Virgin Mary.

    This is the first apparition reported of Virgin Mary, while still alive!.

    After James returned to Jerusalem, he was executed by Herod Agrippa in about 44 AD, the first apostle to be martyred for his faith.

    Several of his disciples took his body and returned it for final burial in Spain. The local queen, observing several of the miracles performed by James' disciples, converted to Christianity and permitted James' body to be buried in a local field.

    Eight centuries later, a cathedral in honor of St. James was erected after his gravesite was rediscovered by a local hermit. The hermit found the burial site after noticing an unusual star formation. The site for the cathedral was called Compostella (starry field) , in Galicia, Spain, and it is a major pilgrimage site to this day.

    - Our Lady of the Pillar of Zaragoza Art and information
    - http://www.arulnathan.com/apparition.htm
    - Aparicion del Pilar de Zaragoza, Spanish
    - http://www.corazones.org/maria/pilar.htm, Spanish

Our Lady Aparecida, Brazil, "Our Lady Who Appeared"
 

Events of October 12 - Saints of October 12:

http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/1012.htm