Standing atop a crescent moon adorned with an angel, Aparecida lifts her hands to her chest in prayer, a slight smile on her upturned lips and several flowers in her hair.
The diminutive statue stands just 39 centimeters tall (15 inches tall), though the gold crown and blue velvet cape she now wears give her a bit of added height and bulk.
Reverence for the figure of the Virgin Mary, known as Marian devotion, is common in much of the Christian world, popular in the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches as well as in Catholic southern Europe, where major shrines such as Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal are dedicated to the Virgin.
According to church lore, the Virgin of Aparecida surfaced on Oct. 16, 1717, as the town of Guaratingueta, an inland hamlet about halfway between the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, prepared for a visit by Sao Paulo state's governor.
A fleet of fishermen plied the nearby Paraiba River to catch fish for a banquet in the official's honor, but after 12 fruitless hours in the normally well-stocked river, all but three of the fishermen gave up.
[...] many have made offerings to the saint there's a room in the sprawling church where the gifts of famous devotees are on display, with a helmet once belonging to the late Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna next to a soccer ball from celebrated striker Ronaldo.
David Gibson, a New York-based reporter for Religion News Service, called Marian devotion the church's "connective tissue," which "binds people together."
The clay used to make the statue has been traced to a pit in Sao Paulo state, and it's thought she might be the work of a Benedictine monk and sculptor who lived nearby.
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