Toledo renews the 1617 vow to the Immaculate Conception

This Sunday, this vow, maintained without interruption for 408 years, was renewed and It was the mayor of Toledo, Carlos Velázquez, who read the words spoken then: “And thus Toledo by its city council and by the vote and voice of all its neighbors before Almighty and Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and of the blessed mother of God, the Virgin Mary and of all the angels and saints of the heavenly court and of all those present to whom, as witnesses, he swears and votes that now and always will affirm and defend that the glorious Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin and that this stain never fell on herbut she was preserved from it by the merits of the redemption of her son Jesus Christ, our Lord and she swears it.”

The mayor received the image of the Immaculate Conception at the door of the church of the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, where it arrived in procession from the House of the Nuns of Mary Immaculate (domestic office) and accompanied by a procession composed of a set of lanterns representative of the brotherhoods, brotherhoods and chapters of Toledo, as well as the faithful and citizens who gathered in the Plaza of San Antonio to see the release of the image.

The miracle of Empel

The head of the procession incorporated a depiction of the Miracle of Empel, a historical event which in 1585 linked the Spanish Tercios in a special way to the Immaculate Conception.

The diocesan delegate for Popular Religiosity, Brotherhoods and Brotherhoods, Juan Ignacio López Serrano, also in procession with Juan Miguel Ferrer Grenesche, Mozarabic canon chaplain, explained that the event celebrated this Sunday “is not a simple historical reminder, but has great value in the present moment, it is a moment in which we experience a living act of love for the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

And he added that the vote that the city of Toledo made public to defend the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin was mainly composed of three things. “An affirmation of faith because it promises to defend the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin at a time of theological debates and contradictory discussions and where the city has moved forward. Through the voice of his municipal corporation, he was able to embrace the faith and was able to make public this truth that the Immaculate Conception was conceived without stain of sin,” he stressed.

But in addition, the wish of the Immaculate Conception is also an act of hope, “because in Mary we see what God wants to accomplish in each of us. God’s plan is that grace triumphs in our lives, that darkness has no place in our lives, and we have already accomplished all this in the Most Holy Mary,” Juan Ignacio López emphasized, adding that it is also “an act of trust, because we turn to Mary like children who turn to their mother. everything that concerns us, we come to bring you our life, our heart with its good things and its sometimes less good things,” he declared.

Once the event was over, the image began its return journey along Calle del Ángel. Previously, he had stopped in front of the monument to the Immaculate Conception located in the Plaza of San Juan de los Reyes, and at that moment and also for the first time, the Tuna Universitaria of Toledo paid a musical tribute to the Virgin, thus inserting into the tradition a festive and unprecedented gesture.