The story
Our Lady of Aparecida Festival in Aparecida
Nossa Senhora Aparecida is Brazil's patron saint, venerated at the Basilica de Aparecida, one of the largest Marian shrines in the world, built around a small terracotta statue fishermen recovered from the Paraiba River in 1717. October 12, the feast day, is a national holiday drawing millions of pilgrims, making it one of Brazil's largest annual religious gatherings.
Three fishermen on the Paraiba River near Sao Paulo pulled up a small, dark terracotta statue of the Virgin Mary in their nets in 1717, and the devotion that grew around that find eventually produced the largest Marian shrine in Latin America and Brazil's designated patron saint, Nossa Senhora Aparecida.