When my boss sent me to deliver bread on bicycle I was distracted by a stupid girl and dropped all the bread. I prayed to the Virgin of Guadalupe so that my boss didn’t fire me. Because she worked this miracle I’m offering her this retablo.

Juan Nepomuceno Cruz
Mexico, 1978

My husband brought home a mermaid, and I was very jealous because he didn’t give me attention at all. One day, when he went for work and the mermaid was still sleeping in her pond, I caught her with a net and threw this damned sardine into the sea. I thanks the Virgin of Zapopan because now my hubby gives me more attention.

Señora Emelia lived a lonely life but thanks to Saint Francis of Assisi a lot of cats came to live with her. Now she has a company and someone to love and to take care of. She thanks for it.

Felipe Ortega was repairing his slate roof when suddenly he was hit by a lightning. He was taken to the hospital. He thanks the Virgin of Guadalupe because he survived.

On Sunday, at the dawn, I waked up frightened. I was in anxiety. It made me go to the kitchen where I suddenly heard a baby crying. I came in the yard and there I saw an abandoned baby. Thanks to the Virgin of Zapopan, I didn’t wake up later when the baby would have been dead from cold and hunger. Instead, now this baby is my joy.

“He gave his life so you could live.”

— said mr. Crayencourt to the factory employees that cold morning while they were looking at the young heroin addict’s corpse. He had been in charge of money-laundering from drug traffic at the factory where they worked.

December 2003

I thank the Virgin of Guadalupe for I can earn my living deign what I like to do, to make people laugh. Not everyone can live as I do. And this life makes me feel happy.

A woman was traveling in a strange city when robbers mugged her, stole her purse and credit cars and ID and left her lying in the road to die. A priests saw her lying there and walked on by. A lady came by who was very rich and was a member of the Junior League and the D. A. R. That lady was late for an appointment so she fed some stray dogs and rushed off. Just in time who did not go to church and had no social class saw the stranger lying in the road. He bandaged up the stranger’s wounds, got a motel room for her and paid all the bills.

I, Petronila Arriga, dedicate this ex-voto to the Virgin of Guadalupe for healing me because I hurt my tit while grinding corn. And thank you, Saint Paschal, because my mole didn’t turn bitter after that.

Puebla — July 8, 1937

Pascual Cañete craved for a car. So he asked the Magi to provide means to buy it and he promised a retablo if they would help him. Now when he’s got a car he keeps his promise thanking them with this retablo.

Juan Vazquez won a cow in the town lottery. He thanks Saint Anthony the Abbot because now he and his family enjoy fresh milk every day. They lacked such a sacred product before and couldn’t afford this animal.

I give thanks to the Virgin for healing my sleepwalking husband. I couldn’t sleep either because I was always preoccupied that something would happen to him.

June 1967

Virgin of Guadalupe, I thank you for giving the fortitude to El Zope (“The Vulture”) to cut my umbilical cord, and to doña Maria to offer me her help. I’m asking you to guard and protect my baby and all this guys because they aren’t bad people.

Alma
Mexico, 25 July 2000