Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

The stone that returned: the Negrita of Carthage

Carthage (Costa Rica) (c. 1635)

In the Puebla de los Pardos neighborhood of Cartago, lived simple, Black people who earned their living with their hands. Pious tradition tells of a young mulatto woman who went out one day to gather firewood and found, on a rock near a small spring, a tiny, dark image of the Virgin and Child, barely twenty centimeters tall, like a little doll holding a baby. She lovingly took it home and kept it wrapped in a cloth.

But the next day, upon returning to the mountain, she found the same image again on the rock. And when she opened the drawer at home, it was empty. This happened several times, until the girl, confused, went to the parish priest. Even staying at the parish church didn't stop the miracle: the image returned to the rock. The town then understood that the Virgin wanted her temple precisely there.

It is important to distinguish carefully between tradition and history. The story of the girl, the comings and goings of the image, and the details of the dialogue with the priest belong to pious tradition, transmitted orally and committed to writing in the 19th century. The name "Juana Pereira" does not appear in the earliest known text, that of Father Miguel Bonilla (1824), who only referred to a "humble mulatto woman"; the exact number of times the image returned is also not recorded in old documents.

What is documented is the long-standing devotion to Our Lady of the Angels in Cartago since colonial times, the sanctuary erected on the site of the discovery—today the Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels—, her proclamation as Patron Saint of Costa Rica in 1824, and the large national pilgrimage on August 2nd, attested since the late 19th century. The exact year of the discovery is uncertain: tradition repeats 1635, but reliable sources acknowledge that this is not recorded. Only its connection to August 2nd, the feast day of Our Lady of the Angels, is firmly established.

Even today, every August 2nd, thousands of Costa Ricans walk to the Basilica, many on their knees for the final stretch, and collect water from the spring as a sign of blessing. The little "Negrita" continues to draw an entire community to her rock.