Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

"The Candle of Nazaré: the image that returned to the igarapé"

Belém, Pará (Brazil)

In the Nazaré neighborhood of Belém, the capital of the Amazonian state of Pará, stands the Basilica Sanctuary of Nossa Senhora de Nazaré. From there, every second Sunday of October, the Círio de Nazaré begins, the largest Catholic religious commemoration in Brazil and one of the largest in the world.

The official, sober account states that the history of the basilica is linked to the discovery of the image of Nossa Senhora de Nazaré by the caboclo Plácido. Pious tradition tells it this way: in the 18th century, a mestizo named Plácido found a small image of the Virgin Mary beside an igarapé, a stream, on the site where the basilica now stands. He took it to his hut, but the image would "disappear" and return to its original location; after several attempts, he understood that the Virgin wished to be venerated there. That place became a hermitage, then a church, and finally a basilica.

It is important to distinguish between tradition and history. The details about the caboclo Plácido, the exact location of the discovery, and the image "that returned" are consistently transmitted in catechism classes and studies on the Círio, but as an origin myth of the sanctuary, without contemporary documentation to confirm them; the precise date of the discovery is unknown. What is well documented is the existence of the basilica, the celebration of the Círio since the end of the 18th century—more than 225 years—and its recognition by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The main procession draws over a million people, who walk barefoot or carrying votive offerings alongside a huge rope to which thousands of devotees are tied; the series of celebrations mobilizes nearly two million faithful and is an occasion for a massive family reunion. The Rosary is prayed, as in all Brazilian piety, in novenas and prayer groups, but there is no record of a specific rite for the Círio focused solely on it.