According to the account kept at the shrine, on 2 August 1635 a young woman of Cartago found a small dark stone image of the Virgin and Child on a rock outside the town; it was enshrined where it had been found, and the church built over the spot is now the Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels. Our Lady of the Angels is honoured as patroness of Costa Rica, and on 2 August pilgrims make the romería, walking the road from San José up to the basilica. The same date is kept at Assisi for the little church of St. Mary of the Angels, the Portiuncula, from which the Franciscans carried the title around the world.

The devotion is a clear instance of what Ecclesia in America calls the Marian face of the Church in the New World: a poor and unremarkable image, found by a poor woman, becoming the point where a whole people recognises itself as loved. Its theological weight is that of the Magnificat — God looks upon the lowly — and the pilgrimage on foot expresses the Christian life as a journey made together toward Christ, to whom his Mother points.

August 2

Costa Rica

The original is tiny — a few inches high — and carved from dark volcanic stone, which gave it the affectionate name La Negrita, the little dark one. Copies keep the dark colouring, the crowned Virgin and the Child held before her, and do not attempt the detail of the worn original.

• La Negrita
• Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles

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