This is the incredible scene faced by hundreds of faithful who crowded the cathedral of the town of Los Realejos, in Tenerife, Spain, before the scheduled mass on Sunday afternoon.
The church was packed with faithful, waiting for the priests to begin the liturgical celebrations planned in honor of the Madonna, when a young man suddenly came running along the central nave with a small child on his shoulders which then has placed on the statue of the Virgin, behind the altar, before walking away and leaving it there. It is the absurd scene faced by hundreds of faithful who crowded the cathedral of the town of Los Realejos on Sunday afternoon, in Tenerife, Spain, on the occasion of the liturgical celebrations foreseen by the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Carmine.
The scene was also immortalized in a video posted online and quickly went viral on social media. The episode around 7:30 pm on Sunday, just before Mass began. As seen in the video. while the parish priest and his assistants prepare the altar, the man runs into the sacred place, with the child sitting on his shoulders and held by the legs. To everyone’s amazement, he doesn’t stop and runs up the stairs to the altar to get as close as possible to the sacred image of the Madonna.
The young man then throws the little one at the foot of the structure that supports the statue and climbs up in turn, making everything stagger, to finally raise the little one right on the religious sculpture. At this point we see the man walking away and leaving the child, while several of those present are incredulous and don’t know what to do.
Although he made the gesture of leaving the child there, the man was then intercepted by the parishioners themselves and accompanied to takes the baby back in her arms before being taken out. The protagonist of the singular story, however, has not ceased to surprise yet and as he walked along the central nave towards the exit he knelt down with the child still in his arms constantly making the sign of the cross, albeit with his back to the altar. A gesture that, after the understandable initial disbelief, prompted the faithful to give him a round of applause.
