There were no fish.

​

On an October morning in 1717, 3 men fished the body of an image of Our Lady Mary in the Paraíba do Sul River. Soon after, downstream, they fished the head of the same image of the saint.

​

Their nets were full of fish. Scarcity turned into abundance.

​

The broken image was taken to the home of one of them and placed in a small oratory. The story of the miracle of the fish became known. Residents of the region began to meet every Saturday to pray the rosary and thank the saint “Aparecida” from the waters for her abundance.

​

Abundance in every sense: the oratory has become a chapel, the chapel a church, the church a basilica. In addition to the fish, people, flowers, candles, the rituals of requests and thanks also multiplied. The region now known as Aparecida do Norte, in the interior of São Paulo, finally became the largest sanctuary in Brazil.

​

In the days before the Patroness's festival, thousands of people come on pilgrimage to honor the saint. The city gets crowded. Souvenir shops testify to the abundance through the sale of souvenirs. The candle room is even brighter with requests and thanks. The exvotos museum gains a flurry of new photos and utensils that prove the miracles attributed to the saint. The Catholic community reverberates the original miracle of the passage from scarcity to abundance.