Joshua Romero Roybal, from Albuquerque, carries a cross on his way to the Santuario de Chimayó, Friday April 15, 2022. He and two friends left Sandia Casino on Wednesday to make thier pilgrimage to Chimayó. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)
Courtney Beeman, her nephew Arian Sanchez, 8, and other family members, all from Farmington, wait with hundreds of others to enter the Santuario de Chimayó after their Good Friday pilgrimage. After two years of almost no Good Friday pilgrimage thousands made the trek this year to the northern New Mexico church. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)
Hugo Gonzales, from Santa Fe, stands outside the Santuario de Chimayó after his Good Friday pilgrimage. He and a group for friends carried two crosses from Buffalo Thunder Resort. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)
After two years of almost no Good Friday pilgrimage thousands made the trek this year to the Santuario de Chimayó, Friday April 15, 2022. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)
Therese and James Sedillo, wearing a Ukraine flag, from Albuquerque, make their Good Friday pilgrimage to the Santuario de Chimayó. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)
Sabrina Abeyta, foreground, and her son Trent, 15, from Las Vegas, pray the stations of the cross at a shrine along their way to the Santuario de Chimayó, Friday April 15, 2022. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)
Jorge and Alicia Lozoya, from Santa Fe, wait with hundreds of others to enter the Santuario de Chimayó after their Good Friday pilgrimage. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)
Jacob Maestas, Evelyn Juarez and Nathan Torrez, all with Las Palmas Youth Adult Ministries in Española, pray behind the Santuario de Chimayó after their Good Friday pilgrimage. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)
David Gallegos, from Albuquerque, carries a basket with a figure of the Virgin Mary as he waits to enter the Santuario de Chimayó after his Good Friday pilgrimage. Gallegos has carried this basket on his pilgrimage for 25 years, and he only changes the flowers each year. The red and blue roses represent the girls and boys who have died due to violence and the white is for their purity. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)
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Tens of thousands of people, most arriving on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, have made pilgrimages from across New Mexico to El Santuario de Chimayó in northern New Mexico, trekking to the 200-yearold Catholic compound each year to pray, ask for healing, seek blessings and offer prayers of thanks.
No doubt, many were particularly thankful to be able to make the trek after two years in which the COVID pandemic reduced their numbers to mere hundreds over the Easter weekend.
The adobe church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and an estimated 300,000 people visit the site each year. A small room off the main sanctuary contains a hole with loose dirt that is refilled each morning with soil from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and blessed by a priest. Believers are allowed to scoop up and remove a bit of the dirt, which they say has curative powers.
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