Our Lady of Bethlehem (Puerto Rico)

Our Lady of Bethlehem (Spanish: la Virgen de Belén) is a Flemish-style oil painting in Puerto Rico.

Our Lady of Bethlehem

Origin of the tradition

Milk Grotto, Bethlehem, 2014

According to tradition, the Milk Grotto, not far from Bethlehem, is the site where the Holy Family took refuge during the Massacre of the Innocents, before their flight to Egypt. While there, the Virgin Mary nursed her holy Child. Some drops of milk sprinkled the walls, changing to white the color of the stone.^[1]

According to Franciscan, Brother Lawrence, an American who oversees the grotto and chapel for the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, the grotto is at least 2,000 years old. Early Christians came to pray here, but the first structure was built around 385.^[1]

A second legend identifies this site as the location where the Three Kings visited the Holy Family, and presented their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to Jesus.^[2] A tradition going back to the 7th century, located at this site the burial place of the innocent victims killed by Herod the Great after the birth of Jesus.^[3]

The Devotion to Our Lady of the Milk requests husbands and wives to pray together the third of the joyful mysteries of the rosary, meditating on the Nativity of the Lord.^[2]

Original painting

The tradition of milk dates back to the first centuries of Christianity. Those converting to Christianity were given a mixture of milk and honey to drink, which in the early churches of Egypt, Rome, and North Africa was blessed at the Easter and Pentecost vigils. Milk with honey symbolized the union of the two natures in Christ. The custom of giving milk with honey to the newly baptized did not last long, but this tradition is visible in artistic representations.^[4]

Details

The image is painted on a wooden canvas. It measures 37.2 cm by 65 cm. The woman in the painting, the Virgin Mary, is medium-sized, and has some color on her face, lose hair, rays around the head, and eyes gazing upon the Child in swaddling clothes.