Saint Sebastian, thank you because my father finally understood and accepted my sexuality. He let me live my life and blessed me.I understand him since I’m his only son, but it’s not my fault that I was born as I am. It’s my fate and I couldn’t do anything.

Ricardo
Polanco, Mexico City
June 7, 1980

Don Rogaciano Hernandez offers this retablo to Saint Joseph in order to thank for his son Sabino coming back home after working on the border for many years. Don thought he’d never see his son again.

Leon, Guanajuato

The soldier Juan Perez got involved with the daughter of the general, and her father caught them in act. He thanks Saint Charbel with this retablo because the general didn’t kill him and only gave him tremendous beating.

Virgin of Guadalupe, I entrust my son to you. Look after him because he’s very drunk and fighty.

Tacubaya, Mexico

I bring this retablo to the Virgin of Juquila thanking her for my son Euastaquio finally straightened his life up and found a job. He was already 35 years old, and he was doing nothing. I couldn’t support him any longer.

Candida Rosas, Oaxaca

Virgin of Guadalupe, thank you for your favors. I got involved with a real psychopath without knowing it. Suddenly he became mad with no reason. He was speaking incoherently and asking me whom I’d been cheating on him with. I told my father about Javier but he answered me that it was my fault that I’d got mixed up with a man like him. In the end, Javier stripped me down, tied my arms around a tree and flogged me. My father was coming by, he saw Javier beating me and shoot him in the leg. I was saved.

Maria Zoto
Tlaxcala, 1969

One October night, I went to sing a serenade to my girlfriend. I was singing to her and heard enthusiastic applause. When I turned back, I saw skeletons cheerfully applauding me. My girlfriend and I got very scared. Thanks goodness, her window was opened, so I jumped into her room, although we had some problems with her parents after because of that. I thank the Virgin to not leave me to the bony dead’s mercy.

My mother-in-law Tamborina Sanchez Aldama used to put false ideas in my wife’s head. She was telling her that I might have another family, that I was flirting with other women, that I was spending all my money for booze, and other stupid things. One day she was in hurry to get to our house to tell my wife that I had a son on the side. But she had an accident at the corner. There were sewerage works going on and she didn’t notice an opened manhole which she fell into. She was in come when they got her out. I thank Saint Sebastian de Aparicio for that. Now her lies won’t ruin my marriage. Besides, everything she had been telling about me eventually turned out to be just fantasies in her head—which by a true miracle doesn’t function anymore.

Apolonio Rosas de Cacho
Teteles de Avila Castillo, Puebla, 1996

My father didn’t like that I was going out with Raul. But we loved each other. So we kept dating, but we met at the cemetery at night so nobody from the town would see us. One of those nights, we saw a couple of skeletons. They came out of their graves, and he was swearing her his eternal love. We were so overwhelmed with what we saw, the next day, I announced to my father that if he wouldn’t allow Raul visiting me at home, I’d run with him (?). Thanks to the Virgin of Guadalupe he understood me, so we can date openly.

Higinio Snachez was taking care of the graves when suddenly the skeleton of his mother-in-wife appeared to him and gave him her jewelry. Higinio thanks the Holy Child of Atocha because his mother-in-law at least after dying stopped being a bitch.

I liked my neighbor, and she responded me. But she had a grumpy and violent father. He was very suspicious and kept an eye on her. One night I climbed to her room to see her and made some noise. Her father heard and came running with a pistol. I prayed Saint Jude Thaddeus, and he gave me an idea to pretend being a sleep-walker. The neighbor believed in to and let me go. I thank for such an exceptional favor.

Onesimo Carreto
Zacatecas, 1959

Maria B. went through a terrible embarrassment when her mother found her sex toy. She thanks Saint Rita with this retablo because her mother understood her and told nothing to her father.

We thank St. Francis for our families accepted our relationship, so from now on we can live together.

Juan Soria & Rogelio Flores
Mexico City, 1992