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Feature News | Tuesday, August 27, 2019

‘The dress is the Virgin’

Rogelio Zelada recalls how he came to be the custodian of the image of Our Lady of Charity

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Rogelio Zelada, custodian of the image of Our Lady of Charity at Miami's shrine, is pictured here in his Pastoral Center office surrounded by Marian images, the patronesses of various Latin American countries.

Photographer: ROCIO GRANADOS | LVC

Rogelio Zelada, custodian of the image of Our Lady of Charity at Miami's shrine, is pictured here in his Pastoral Center office surrounded by Marian images, the patronesses of various Latin American countries.

File image of Rogelio Zelada in the process of dressing the image of Cuba's patroness, Our Lady of Charity.

Photographer: CORTESIA

File image of Rogelio Zelada in the process of dressing the image of Cuba's patroness, Our Lady of Charity.

MIAMI | Probably no one knows more about Our Lady of Charity than Rogelio Zelada.

He has composed hymns in her honor, written about her, restored and dressed her image and, with his own hands, made other images of her. For more than 30 years, Zelada has been the custodian of the image of Cuba’s patroness kept at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity in Miami.

Zelada is associate director for Hispanic formation in the archdiocesan Office of Lay Ministry, as well as a member of the executive committee of the National Hispanic Institute of Liturgy. He also has served on the U.S. bishops’ Subcommittee on Divine Worship in Spanish.

He arrived in Miami from Puerto Rico after leaving Cuba during the Mariel exodus in 1980. When Miami’s late, beloved auxiliary bishop, Agustín Román, rector of the shrine, learned of Zelada’s work, he asked him to restore the image housed at the shrine, in preparation for Pope John Paul II’s visit here in 1987.

Marite Alfonso and Rogelio Zelada pray the novena to Mary, Undoer of Knots, during the celebration of the feast day of Our Lady of Charity, patroness of Cuba, Sept. 8, 2015.

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC

Marite Alfonso and Rogelio Zelada pray the novena to Mary, Undoer of Knots, during the celebration of the feast day of Our Lady of Charity, patroness of Cuba, Sept. 8, 2015.

The image had arrived from Cuba in 1961 and never been restored. The woman who dressed it for special celebrations would apply women’s cosmetics on the face, which eventually caused the paint to fade. Worse perhaps, the image — constantly on display at the shrine — had no protection from dust or salt air, which also damaged her garments.

The restoration transformed the image, Zelada recalled. Resplendent rays that emanated from her back, and were mounted on a wooden base, were removed so that a silver base, like the one on the original image in Cuba, could be added. Until then, the wooden base was laminated in silver and a papal crest was added, followed by the half-moons, angels, and finally, more recently, the silver base.

Rogelio Zelada oversees the removal of the image of Our Lady of Charity from its protective urn at the start of the annual celebration for Cuba's patroness, Sept. 8, 2015.

Photographer: CRISTINA CABRERA JARRO | FC

Rogelio Zelada oversees the removal of the image of Our Lady of Charity from its protective urn at the start of the annual celebration for Cuba's patroness, Sept. 8, 2015.

Detail of the dress worn by the image of Our Lady of Charity during the celebration of her feast day, Sept. 8, 2016, at what is now the Watsco Center on the University of Miami campus in Coral Gables.

Photographer: ROCIO GRANADOS | LVC

Detail of the dress worn by the image of Our Lady of Charity during the celebration of her feast day, Sept. 8, 2016, at what is now the Watsco Center on the University of Miami campus in Coral Gables.

 

THE DRESSES

But only Mary’s face is visible. A cross obscures one hand and the infant Jesus the other.

“The dress has to convey, symbolically, what the image represents. It’s not just about dressing her,” said Zelada. “The dress is the Virgin. The dress must transmit the religious feeling, the love, the strength. The beauty of the image must transmit the beauty of Mary.”

Images of the Virgin Mary have been dressed since the Council of Trent. In response to Protestants’ denigrating the use of images in worship, the Church highlighted them, adorning them with crowns and garments. The image of Our Lady of Charity dates from around that time, Zelada said.

Nearly all the patronesses of Latin America wear dresses atop images that are quite plain. Many of these images are very famous but would be unrecognizable without their dresses.

Zelada commissions seamstresses to make the dresses because he does not know how to sew — but he knows how images from earlier times were dressed. When he commissions a garment, he tries to imbue it with meaning, something related to the life of Mary or the history of Cuba. “I give the idea, but I also leave it up to the creativity of the seamstress,” he said.

During the 60 years that the image has been in Miami, there have been many seamstresses. María Luisa Ruíz de Blanco was the first, followed by Hilda Vázquez and Idalia Miranda. Miranda created the dress made with 18th-century gold lace that adorned the image during Pope John Paul II’s visit. Other seamstresses were Yolanda Calzadilla and Carmen Ruíz, who died recently.

Zelada said when he was very sick a while back, he asked God to find him a seamstress, and God sent him too many. “Now I have several people sewing dresses. The idea is to have garments in reserve, because every day it’s harder to find people who have the patience, good taste and skill to do it.”

For the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the image’s arrival in Miami, coming up in 2021, Zelada has commissioned a special dress from a group of nuns in Spain. It will be made of “satin that is used for the outfits of bullfighters, with gold embroidery. It’s a very beautiful design,” he said.

This year’s dress is beautiful as well. It is made of old-gold lace with amber rhinestones, quite exquisite.

Every dress, in fact, is a work of art that can’t be exposed to the elements, Zelada explained, because light causes the fabric to deteriorate.

“The idea is for her to wear a new dress each September 8 (her feast day),” he said, then switch to an older one for special occasions such as Holy Week, Pentecost and Christmas

Besides, many of the dresses were ruined when Hurricane Andrew came through in 1992, flooding the basement of the shrine where they were stored.

Only quality materials are used when creating the dresses: Swarovski crystal, cultured pearls, silks and lace. “The materials are costly but more so is the labor. It takes many hours of work,” Zelada said.

In 1994, someone tried to make off with the image at the shrine, so afterward it was placed in an urn which also protects the garments. The urn is made of a very heavy, bulletproof material, and has a wooden base that required 10 people to grip during the installation.

For years, Zelada was the one who took the image out of the urn at the September 8 celebration, and to change its dresses — not an easy task, he added. The dress must be placed so that it falls evenly on each side. Then come the ornamentations, such as a copy of a medal from the mambises (Cuba’s independence fighters). It is made of gold molded from the votives brought by the faithful in thanksgiving for favors granted. The original in Cuba is made of bronze.

The image also has a gold, bejeweled pin surrounded by 11 pearls representing the 11 dioceses of Cuba, and six corals representing the old provinces of Cuba. It has a rosary because Pope John Paul II put one on the original image of Our Lady of Charity that he crowned during his stop in Santiago de Cuba in 1998. On its neck is a pendant filled with Cuban soil.

In one hand, the image holds a cross, which it did not have when it arrived in 1961. Father Jimenez Rebollar’s niece took a cross she wore around her neck, made of pearls, and pinned it on the image. In 2001, Zelada decided to place that same cross around the image’s neck so that it would not be lost and remain as a historical piece.

In her other hand, the image holds the infant Jesus, restored by Zelada in 1987 to appear as in the original: seated and holding a globe of the world. The crowns on the virgin and child, the halo and cross also are copied from the original, coated in gold. They were commissioned for the pope’s visit.


MARY ‘GOT ME INTO ALL THIS MESS’

Zelada said he started making images of Cuba’s patroness because she “got me into all this mess.” Although he has some manual skills, he acknowledged, his forte is music.

Bishop Román asked him to make a replica of Our Lady of Charity to raffle off at the September 8 celebration. He had already made an image of St. Mary Magdalen for his parish in Cuba. And he knew a bit about restoring antiques because he took a course on the subject back when Havana’s cathedral was being restored, and he was a seminarian.

Volunteeers with the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity carry a replica of the image, made by Rogelio Zelada, which was raffled off during the Mass on the feast of Our Lady of Charity.

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC

Volunteeers with the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity carry a replica of the image, made by Rogelio Zelada, which was raffled off during the Mass on the feast of Our Lady of Charity.

To make the image for the raffle, Zelada remembers that he started with an image of Our Lady of Charity purchased at a local Cuban store, Almacenes González (now out of business). He took it completely apart and shaped it the way he wanted. He bathed the halo and crowns in gold “and that’s how it began, one every year.”

He has made those images for 32 years, since 1987. Some years he made two, one to be raffled in September and the other in December.

Making the images takes a long time, he said, because he is not a sculptor, and he creates them in his spare time — between his work at the Pastoral Center, the classes he teaches at night and the medical treatments he undergoes.

Very beautiful images can be purchased in Cuba, but people prefer his because they are all different. He said if he dedicated himself to making images and selling them, “I would be rich.” But no. “I make them for the shrine. I have made some for friends or for a parish, because I’ve had the opportunity, but I cannot dedicate myself to that.”

He acquires the materials for making the images in places he visits. When he sees something that might be useful, he buys it, one reason for the variety of dresses. He also uses old images that people throw out. “Very patiently, I scrape until I create the face. The body is made of ceramic, I have a mold for the hands, and the baby Jesuses I get from Spain.”

Zelada has made images of Our Lady of Charity for St. Agatha Parish in Miami, San Lazaro in Hialeah, St. Mary Star of the Sea in Key West, and St. Joseph in Miami Beach.

“Being the custodian of this image,” he said, “means guarding a very important symbol of our Cuban identity and of the reality of our faith.”

BE A PART OF IT

  • The annual celebration of the feast of Our Lady of Charity will take place Sunday, Sept. 8, at the Watsco Center on the University of Miami campus, 1245 Dauer Drive, Coral Gables. This year’s celebration also marks the 40th anniversary of the ordination to the episcopacy of Miami’s late auxiliary bishop, Agustín Román, the first Cuban-born bishop in the U.S.
  • The novena for Our Lady of Charity begins Friday, Aug. 30, and concludes Saturday, Sept. 7. Masses are celebrated daily at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity, at noon and 8 p.m., all in Spanish. The shrine is located at 3609 S. Miami Ave, Miami. 
  • The traditional artistic and musical vigil in honor of Cuba’s patroness will take place Saturday, Sept. 7, beginning at 9 p.m. at the shrine. More information at www.ermita.org

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