A young Cuban moved thousands of people this Tuesday by fulfilling a promise to the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre by crawling on her knees down the entire aisle of the church in El Cobre, Santiago de Cuba, dressed in yellow and holding a bouquet of sunflowers.
The video, posted on TikTok on the same September 8th —the liturgical feast of the patroness of Cuba—, shows the young woman slowly walking down the aisle of the temple until she reaches the altar, where she stands to greet the sacred image.
The gesture encapsulates one of the most deeply ingrained expressions of popular Cuban religiosity: "fulfilling a promise" involves physically honoring a vow made to the Virgin in times of distress, illness, or gratitude for a favor received.
The yellow and the sunflowers are not a casual choice. Both are the colors and flowers most associated with the Virgin of Charity of El Cobre in Cuban tradition, both in Catholicism and in Afro-Cuban syncretism, where the Virgin is identified with Oshún, the Yoruba orisha of love and fertility, whose sacred color is precisely golden yellow.
The celebration on September 8th coincides with the Nativity of the Virgin Mary and is considered the largest religious event on the island. The National Sanctuary of El Cobre prepared a special program that included a midnight mass, another at 9:30 in the morning, a parish mass at eight in the evening, and a procession in Santiago de Cuba.
This type of imagery evokes a strong emotional response within the Cuban community both on and off the island. Similar videos of Cuban women fulfilling promises on their knees at the sanctuary of El Cobre have frequently gone viral on social media around September 8th.
In July 2025, another Cuban described her experience with a phrase that resonated with those who witnessed it: "They shaved my knees", while recounting how she fulfilled her promise at the same sanctuary.
The Virgin of Charity of El Cobre was proclaimed the patroness of Cuba in 1916 by Pope Benedict XV. Her image is venerated at the National Shrine Basilica of El Cobre and draws pilgrims from all over the island each year, as well as Cubans in exile who keep the devotion alive from afar.
Faith, in any case, remains one of the few spaces where Cubans freely express what they feel, and the sanctuary of El Cobre is one of the few places where that expression becomes a collective image.
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