Landa is one of the missions of the Sierra Gorda de Querétaro. Here we will tell you a little about her.
This mission was baptized with the name of Santa Maria de las Aguas de Landa, from the Chichimeca voice "lan-ha", which means swampy, swamp. It is, of course, the Virgin, in her figure of the Immaculate Conception, who presides over the façade on the portico of the church; and it is that she is, precisely, "the door of Heaven."
There is nothing in the whole facade that is out of meaning, of a reason for being. In the first section, it should be noted that its four stipe columns offer a peculiar novelty: they are, at the same time, receptacles for niches that keep four exemplary Franciscan saints: San Jacobo de la Marca, San Bernardino de Siena, San Juan Capistrano and Blessed Alberto. At that same level, in other niches, Santo Domingo and San Francisco.
In the second body, at the ends, San Pedro and San Pablo. And on the sides of the skylight, two very curious characters that seem to come out of the wall; both write on tables: on the right, Juan Duns Escoto, medieval theologian, precursor of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception; and on the left, Sister María de Jesús de Agreda, Spanish Conceptionist nun, defender of the same dogma and protector and guide of the Franciscan missionaries in America.
In the third body, on the left, the protomartyr San Esteban de Jerusalem, and on the right, the Spanish martyr San Vicente de Zaragoza. In the middle, above the skylight, the deacon San Lorenzo de Huesca, from Aragón, with the grill on which he was sacrificed. On the same level, two strong medallions with scenes of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem and the scourging. And as a very peculiar note, in the stipes of that level, some mythological little mermaids that leave us with the question of their meaning in this unique cover, which is crowned by the archangel Saint Michael, sword in hand, who steps on a demon that seems to pose , almost smiling, facing the public.
