OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS, ECUADOR - 2 FEBRUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

Saints celebrated on the 2nd of February

Marian Feast Days

WELCOME!

OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS, ECUADOR

The icon of Our Lady of Good Success 

The image has its origin around 1606 in Spain when two Brothers of the newly-founded Order of Minims for the Service of the Sick were on their way to Rome to ask the pope for official approval of their order. When they were near the Catalonian town of Traigueras a fierce storm broke out and they feared for their lives.

They prayed to Our Lady for help and then saw a soft light in the mountains and headed toward it. They found a cave with the fragrance of flowers that surrounded a beautiful statue of Our Lady. She had Jesus in her left arm, a sceptre in her right and a precious crown on her head. They fell on their knees in veneration, wondering how the statue came to be in that remote place. The next day they inquired of the local people about the cave and the statue but no one knew anything about them. The brothers then took the statue with them to Rome. But how did the devotion reach Ecuador? The answer is to be found with the nun, Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres.

She was born Mariana Francisca Cadiz in the Spanish province of Vizcaya in 1563.

On the day of her First Communion at the age of nine, Our Lady appeared to her and told her she would be a religious of her Immaculate Conception in the New World.

On February 2, 1610, Our Lady appeared to her and asked that a statue be made of her under the title Mary of Good Success of the Purification. At a young age, Mariana was privileged to receive special favours from God. Our Lady told her that in our lamentable times, heresies would abound, the corruption of manners and customs would be almost complete, and the light of the Faith nearly extinguished. To atone for the many profanations, blasphemies, and abuses and to hasten the day of the triumphant restoration, this little sister was asked to become an a victim for our times, Thus, in a special way, the vocation of Mother Mariana links her to the crisis in the Church, and the loss of faith we see at this time. She offered herself to Our Lady, confident that her prayers could win many souls back to God, and help to establish the reign of Jesus and Mary in the world once more. With Our Lady, we can do great things for God.

From a St Saviour's Church leaflet, October 2026