A shrine to all that is Cuban
Exiles pitching in to restore
landmark
Days later, the son flew her body to Miami and a hearse drove the casket around La Ermita de la Caridad del Cobre, the newly constructed shrine to Cuba's patron saint built on a stretch of shore along Biscayne Bay.
Twenty-five years later, Cuban-exile devotion to Our Lady of Charity remains unshaken, and her Miami shrine, lovingly called ``La Ermita,'' has become a South Florida landmark. Built with donations from newly arrived exiles who gave 10 cents per family member to pay $420,000 in construction costs, La Ermita is a symbol of Cuban-exile sentiment.
This year, as exiles celebrate La Ermita's silver anniversary, the shrine is undergoing the most extensive renovation of its history. Money for the $800,000 expansion project is being raised the same way it was back then -- with small donations from exiles, this time $1 per family member.
``Any number of Cuban exiles could have paid for all this, but La Ermita belongs to everyone. We wanted every Cuban exile to feel like he had contributed to the project,'' said Auxiliary Bishop Agustin Roman, one of the founders and the Cuban community's beloved spiritual icon.
Back in the late 60s, the Archdiocese of Miami, under the leadership of Archbishop Coleman F. Carroll, donated the land next to Mercy Hospital. The 120-foot high, cone-shaped structure was designed by the late Cuban architect Jose Perez Benitoa to simulate the virgin's mantel.
``It's like a mantel that embraces us all,'' said Rafael Peñalver, a devout Catholic active in civic affairs. ``Every Cuban feels connected to this place. In times of crisis -- personal or national -- the Cuban community flocks to La Ermita to find spiritual and emotional support.''
The renovations were necessary, Roman said, because La Ermita could not accommodate the overflow of visitors, estimated at about half a million a year.
By the end of this month, when Roman turns 70 (his birthday is Tuesday) and La Cofradia de Nuestra Señora de la Caridad, the shrine's lay support group celebrates its 30th anniversary, the second phase of the project is scheduled to be completed.
Among the improvements:
Another panel shows the ``bread and wine that becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ,'' Roman said. The other features a chalice and the Host.
People will be able to pray facing the virgin's stained-glass panel, which faces Biscayne Bay.
``We just followed the original design,'' said Coconut Grove architect David Cabarrocas, who took over after the project's original architect, Felipe de Leon, died suddenly of a heart attack a year ago.
``La Ermita has become a site for pilgrimages not only for Cubans but also for Latin Americans,'' Cabarrocas said. ``It's a gathering place for people on patriotic occasions, for romerías [religious celebrations], and there was just no space.''
Throughout the years, La Ermita's history has run parallel to that of exiles.
After seven years of fund-raising efforts, the shrine was dedicated in Dec. 2, 1973 with a Mass attended by thousands of flag-waving exiles who chanted, ``Virgen de la Caridad, Devuelvenos a Cuba.'' That cry -- Lady of Charity, Return to us our Cuba -- would ring year after year as bitter exile extended.
Cubans come to the shrine at 3609 S. Miami Ave. from all over the world to pray to la virgencita. Civic groups such as the Municipalities of Cuba in Exile plan pilgrimages there to pray for Cuba's freedom. Newcomers to exile visit the shrine as soon as they arrive.
On any day or night, Cubans come to find solace, to light candles, to bring flowers in the virgin's color -- yellow roses, yellow carnations, yellow daisies.
``Some are not even Catholics, but they feel there is a Cuban presence there that touches all,'' Peñalver said. ``Its geographic location is like the bridge to Cuba, a connection to those waters in which so many have died.''
La Ermita, which faces toward Cuba, is a monument to all things Cuban.
The six concrete columns that form the mantel represent the six traditional provinces of pre-Castro Cuba -- Pinar del Rio, La Habana, Matanzas, Las Villas, Camagüey and Oriente. The six seats on the altar, also representing the provinces, will be engraved with each area's emblem.
Under the altar sits the first rock blessed in 1971 at the beginning of construction. It contains Cuba soil, sand and rocks that were solidified using water found on a raft that washed up on South Florida shores with 15 Cubans who had died making the treacherous journey across the Florida Straits.
Parents often take their children to see a floor-to-ceiling mural of Cuban history -- the shrine's center piece -- painted by Cuban artist Teok Carrasco. It shows Our Lady of Charity surrounded by images of Cuban colonial times, of the War of Independence and the days of the Republic.
And of course, there is Roman, an exile himself, forced to abandon Cuba in 1961. A close friend, Peñalver calls him ``a living saint, a man of goodness.'' These days Roman tends to a flock spirited by the visit of Pope John Paul II to Cuba, but also weary of what seems like never-ending communist rule.
``The Pope planted a seed,'' Roman said. ``Now the work of evangelization has to take place. And a people evangelized are a people who will seek freedom.''
For the Cuban exile, he said, ``this is a time of purification.''
``A garden to be pruned so that it can sprout again,'' Roman said.
Copyright © 1998 The Miami Herald