Step out of the car at the Shrine of Chimayo and don’t be surprised if you find yourself wondering: Have I just passed through a wrinkle in the space-time continuum? Is this really the United States ca. 2007?

No you haven’t and yes it is.

The shrine, affectionately called “El Santuario” by locals — Anglo and Hispanic alike — includes more than just the brown adobe chapel and its walled churchyard. The entire northern New Mexico landscape around you seems an extension of the holy place.

Nor is this only an illusion. The stream winding its way in front of the chapel, the sleepy restaurants just across the dusty path, the tiny gift shop offering postcards and rosaries, the outdoor altar with benches, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains rising up behind the setting — all are here to complement the shrine (rather than vice versa).

Well, okay, maybe the mountains preceded the shrine. But only the mountains. They must have known what was coming.

This calm desert locale has been a place of pilgrimage and prayer for nearly two centuries. Pilgrims arrive year-round, but Lent marks the height of the season. As many as 20,000 people arrive on Good Friday alone. Many come by foot, walking all the way here from the capital of Santa Fe — which is some 30 miles away. A few trudge from points ever farther afield. For them, getting here is half the grace.

Throughout Lent, souls are drawn here to pray, offer petition and prepare their hearts for the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord, in glory, come Holy Week.

Easter Sunday falls on the second Sunday in April, the 8th, this year. Ash Wednesday sends us on our penitential way there on Feb. 21.

Healing … Dirt?

I approached the shrine on a Saturday afternoon last summer, when many others were coming and going. One enterprising family capitalized on the flow of visitors between the chapel and the parking lot. They shouted, “Elote caliente!” It took me and my family a few minutes to figure out what that meant. Soon enough, we understood: hot roasted corn!

Outside the chapel, most of the visitors spent their time admiring the beautiful surroundings. Cameras were clicking all over the place. Others appeared to be more at home in Chimayo; they enjoyed picnic lunches at tables shaded by the chapel itself.

None, however, left without scooping up a bag or two of dirt from the pocito (little well) in a tiny room just to the side of the main altar. Just as every Catholic pilgrim in France is drawn to the healing waters of Lourdes, everyone who comes to this site wants some dirt. Because of the healing powers some have claimed for it, the shrine has been nicknamed the “Lourdes of America.”

Legend surrounds the origins of this dirt well and the founding of the shrine itself. There are two current, differing accounts. The true story is likely to be inextricably hidden within these tales. Both involve the finding of a large crucifix — the copy of one at a shrine in Esquipulas, Guatemala — at the site of the modern pocito.

By one account, a priest residing in nearby Santa Cruz, N.M., followed a strange light out into the desert and was inspired to dig. Upon doing so, he unearthed the crucifix, which he carried back to his church in triumph. The next day it had vanished. He returned to the place from which he had uncovered it and found it once more buried in the dirt. Three times this crucifix left Santa Cruz and buried itself in the desert. The priest then declared the site miraculous and set about having a chapel built around it.

In the other story, a missionary priest from Esquipulas was killed by Indians but later buried by other Catholics. His body and the large crucifix that had been entombed with it were uncovered when the Santa Cruz River flooded some years later. The body was recognized as that of a martyr and the chapel built to his honor.

The crucifix at the center of both tales remains at the center of the chapel, above the high altar. The carved corpus hanging from the cross depicts a bloody and beaten Christ.

The wooden reredos that frames the crucifix wears the vibrant and joyful colors of the Hispanic style. Such bright designs would seem out of place next to the dolorous Jesus — but here they serve as unmistakable reminders of the glorious resurrection to come.

Through the Desert

At the front of the chapel, a door at the left leads the way to the room with the dirt well. Just outside this well room, another area gives tribute to God’s healing power. Votive offerings fill this space: items left by those who believe the prayers they offered here, or the prayers of those to whom they carried a bit of the “miraculous” dirt, were answered.

A collection of crutches crowds one wall. Numerous photos, showing all manner of joyful people, testify to the love of God for his people — and of his people for one another. Often, these are accompanied by brief, written testimonies detailing how the person in the image was cured of a grave illness or found a solution to a seemingly insurmountable problem.

Rosaries and other mementos dangle from protrusions, are tucked into frames or lean balanced against statues. Thousands, it seems, attest to the sanctity of this place and its favor with God. None of these healings or miracles has been officially confirmed by the Church; none has been investigated. Yet each day people come here to listen to God in the stillness, to offer him their needs and their troubles, to open their hearts to his will.

So it is that this unpretentious shrine with chipped plaster walls and rough wooden kneelers springs from the desert that surrounds it. This desert, like the desert into which the Holy Spirit called Jesus to pray at that first Lent, will always be a place of prayer, penance and promise.

Emily Ortega writes from

Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Shrine of Chimayo/Holy Family Parish (Shrine of Our Lord of Esquipulas)

P.O. Box 235
Chimayo, NM 87522
(505) 351-4889

archdiocesesantafe.org

chimayo0.tripod.co

Planning Your Visit

It’s a 50-minute drive from Santa Fe. Take St. Francis Drive (U.S. Route 285/U.S. Route 84) northbound. Turn right on N.M. Route 503. Follow signs to Chimayo and El Santuario. A pilgrimage for vocations is held the first week of June; it culminates with Mass celebrated by the archbishop.