I, Gumersinda Cervantes, give infinite thanks to the Virgin of Juquila for saving my old man. He almost died of fear when he met a headless man on his way back from corn fields. He fainted.

In 1920 in San Nicolas my buddy caught me on the mat with his wife. He started to shoot at us. I give infinite thanks to the Holy Child of Atocha because bullets didn’t hit me. She took them all.

Some scoundrels stole a guitar from the street musician Sebastian Garcias. He thanks the Lord of Wonders because he was able to chase them and get his instrument back.

The Romero Fernandez family thank the Virgin of the Solitude with this retablo for the trip to Holland. It was their life dream, and it came true.

Adela Gutierrez was selling her goods at the market when a nasty old lady kidnapped her baby. Señora thanks the Holy Child of Atocha because people helped her to apprehend the kidnapper and return the baby.

Humberto Pineda beat his girlfriend. Her brother tied him to his pickup truck and dragged him around leaving him badly injured. Humberto thanks Saint Raymond for the recovery and promises to not be the macho with women.

Señor Catarino Pacheco thanks the Merciful Lord with this retablo for saving his life when the earthquake ruined his hut. Only two little pigs were killed in the pigsty.

The writer Herminio Lezama Flores suffered from a writer’s block and couldn’t write anything. But one day a pair of cats came to him. They started visiting him and have brought his inspiration back. He thanks Saint Jude Thaddeus for this noble gesture.

Claudia M. came for a massage. She got so excited she got laid with a masseur. She thanks Saint John Bosco with this retablo for nobody in her family found out about this. She promises not to fall in temptation anymore.

Monica Rodriguez used to have a dream in which she was raped by a man. She prayed to Saint Martha, and the nightmare was gone. Now she sleeps calmly, and she brings the present retablo in gratitude.

Karina Sandoval got a boyfriend who was obsessed with drinking her blood. She thanks the Virgin of Juquila with this retablo for she managed to get rid of him in time.

Vicenta Carmona brings the present retablo to Saint Jude Thaddeus thanking him for her mistress, the painter Frida, has made up with her old man and doesn’t go so grumpy anymore.

Mexico, 1946

The father Macario Mendoza brings the present retablo to Saint Pascual Baylon thanking him for he got recovered from a bad typhus and now can enjoy again chiles en nogada made by the nuns of the convent.

Puebla, 1917