Quick, when you picture a church building, what do you see? A little white Protestant situation with a steeple? An old stone building with stained glass?
1. El Santuario de Chimayó
We arrived in Chimayó in the lull after Easter. Nestled in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the small hamlet lies about forty-five minutes north of Santa Fe. If I hadn’t seen videos of the great crowds that throng the sanctuary during Holy Week, I wouldn’t have believed this humble adobe church in the middle of nowhere could be the host of the largest number of religious pilgrims in the U.S but that is what it is.
Known as the “Lourdes of North America,” many come in search of a cure for as an old woman says, in Willa Cather’s 1927 novel