THE MIRACULOUS CROSS

This is an edited version of a story from a collection of unpublished anecdotes by Bernardino "Riri" d'AssumpçãoClick on the SEARCH icon and enter his ID number (3) to be taken to his personal page

One of the old stories passed down from generation to generation in Macau was about a miraculous and mysterious cross; I have tried hard but failed to find any written references about it.

The legend is that a large wooden cross it drifted onto Macau's Cacilhas Beach from where it was salvaged and posted in a local church. In time, many are sick people began to recover miraculously simply by praying before and touching this cross. In those days, Macau came under the jurisdiction of the Portuguese viceroy in Goa, where the Archbishop wielded considerable power; when news about the miracles reached his ears, he ordered it be shipped to Goa and kept there. The residents of Michael protested strongly against this but to no avail and the cross was put aboard a ship sailing to Goa.

Within two weeks it was learned the ship had been shipwrecked and some three months later the cross had floated back to Cacilhas Beach.

Up to this point, all the stories coincided in every detail but thereafter each old family had a different version of what happened. Some said that the cross was shipped back to Goa, others that it was kept in Saint Paul's church and destroyed in the fire that burnt the church in 1885. There were even others who maintained that it was hidden in the original Saint Anthony's church and destroyed with the church in the great typhoon of 1874.

No written records of this miraculous cross have been found. Did it ever existed or was merely another of Macau's old legends? All we know is that it had persisted in Macau for generations.