The clay image pulled from the Paraíba do Sul River in 1717 has become one of the most powerful religious symbols in the Americas. Ninety-five years after Pope Pius XI declared Our Lady of Aparecida the patroness of Brazil, the shrine that houses the statue receives nearly 10 million pilgrims annually, and the feast day on 12 October remains a national holiday.
According to tradition, three fishermen — Domingos Garcia, João Alves and Felipe Pedroso — were casting their nets in the river in the state of São Paulo when, after repeated failures, they retrieved a small clay figure of the Virgin Mary, specifically of the Immaculate Conception. They named it Aparecida, meaning «appeared». The fishermen soon reported graces and miracles attributed to the Virgin's intercession, and word of the image spread, drawing devotees on pilgrimage from across Brazil.
More than two centuries later, in 1930, Pius XI signed the decree proclaiming Our Lady Aparecida patroness of Brazil. The solemn ceremony took place only in 1931, in Rio de Janeiro, then the federal capital, before an estimated one million people. The pontifical decree declaring the Virgin Mary, under the title of Our Lady of the Conception Aparecida, patroness of the Brazilian nation was read publicly. On the same day, the flags of Brazil and the Vatican were added to the mantle that clothes the image.
Decades later, in 1980, during the first visit of Pope John Paul II to Brazil, 12 October was officially established as a national holiday in honour of the country's patroness. Since then, the National Sanctuary of Aparecida, in the state of São Paulo, has become one of the largest Marian pilgrimage sites in the world, where the faithful come to renew their faith and entrust their intentions to the Virgin Mary.
For Bishop Vilson Dias de Oliveira, emeritus bishop of Limeira and a member of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, the solemnity of Our Lady of Aparecida transcends Brazil's borders and stands as a «spiritual beacon» for universal Catholicism. In a letter, he highlighted the saint's care for the small and the poor.
«The discovery of the small image in the waters of the Paraíba do Sul River did not merely open a chapter in the history of national faith, but inscribed in the Church's patrimony a profoundly theological event: the manifestation of Mary's solicitude for the little ones, for the discarded, and for the continents that seek their liberation and unity in the Gospel of Christ», he wrote.
The bishop said the devotion to Our Lady Aparecida holds a «singular and prophetic resonance» for Latin America as a whole. «The Latin American continent, marked by historical wounds of inequality but illuminated by a fervent popular piety, finds in the Virgin of black clay the living expression of the face of the continental Church itself», he said.
In the document, the emeritus bishop assessed that the figure of the Virgin Aparecida attests to the world that God prefers to manifest his greatness through what is fragile and humble. The small, broken image, recovered from the bottom of the waters by the hands of simple fishermen, recalls that true evangelisation «is born of love incarnated in the concrete reality of peoples and their cultures», he said.
«May the communities spread throughout Brazil and the sister countries of Latin America not fear taking this audacious step. Faced with the social, economic and spiritual challenges that mark our time, the Virgin Aparecida reminds us that God continues to perform his greatest wonders through the humble and those organised in community», Bishop Vilson concluded.