about all those shrine of Mama Mary

 

The church is visited by both Ecuadorian and Colombian pilgrims.

I had visited with my sons 40 years ago. From Pasto we went via bus to Ipialis then hiked over the fields to the northern gorge site. This left us across the gorge from the church, but there is a bridge across the gorge, and on the northern end of the bridge is a small chapel where you can place candles.  

this video is very north American bias and emphasizes the Spanish missionaries.

However my son gave a different story about it: the miracle is about an Indian lady carrying her handicapped daughter along the road along the gorge ridge, and suddenly the daughter cried look at the beautiful lady. And the locals made a shrine there. Only later did the missionaries encourage the formal church. And my sons didn't say anything about the image discussed in the video, only about a spring in the bottom of the gorge where people collect water and consider it holy. They hiked down to the bottom (not me: I am not athletic) to visit the area.

This is the story the locals tell, and the locals see it as Our Lady visiting the local  people, who were looked down on by the establishment Spanish who ran the place. So it is beloved as a sign Mary loved them and visited them, not as a shrine pushed on them by outside Spanish priests.

such visions are common and usually ignored or debunked by the Catholic church, but locals often place shrines at these areas.

I should note that when traveling down the Pan American highway, we saw a shrine on a hill near the road, and my sons said that the Virgin had appeared there.

Here in the Philippines there are a lot of small Lourdes shines in churches and many have one on their garden and families pray the rosary after dinner. Here she is Mama Mary and folk religion is family oriented, not theological: Mama Mary, Kuya Jesus, and God as father.

I am sure there are a lot of visions of Mama Mary here which are known to family and friends but the church tends to shut them down if they get too enthusiastic.

but the big shrine is along the EDSA where the People Power revolution occurred. Left out of most secular articles, the locals believe that Mama Mary appeared and stopped Marcos Sr's soldiers from shooting the demonstrators, who were praying the rosary and singing hymns. 

  in the US, one does hear about visions, often in times of stress or sickness, where our Lady or an angel comes with a word of comfort.

In the USA  it is common for people to place statues of the virgin in the fields or in the front yards . Our next door neighbor in Pennsylvania, a coalminer, had one in his front garden .