In the town of Cartago, the Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles (Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels, named after the nation's patron saint) houses a statuette of the Black Virgin holding the infant Christ. Legend has it that on Aug. 2, 1635 a young girl named Juana Periera found a small statuette of the Virgin Mary perched on a rock beside a stream while she was strolling in a forest. Taking the statuette home, she placed it in her collection. Passing the same point the next afternoon, she discovered another identical statuette at the same location. Returning home, she found that the first statuette had vanished, and she placed the new one where it had stood. After this happened three days in a row, she went to the priest who, after having the identical experience, decided to build a shrine at the site. Today, the rock is found in the church's basement, and thousands credit the stream's water with miraculous powers to heal injuries, handicaps, and even enable supplicants to survive surgery. Downstairs, reduced and weathered by years of attention and chiseling, is the original stone, topped with a replica of the Virgin which is all done up in an elaborate gold case. The original statue, crudely fashioned from a granite-like stone, is rarely removed from its cabinet set above the altar. Stolen several times, it has always been returned. (This photo is of the replica).
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