Worshiping that which is dirt...that is what has been happening in a New Mexico sanctuary visited on pilgrimages, much to the changrin of the sanctuary's priest.

Erik Eckholm reports, "tens of thousands of pilgrims walk eight miles or more to the shrine on Good Friday, some bearing heavy crosses and others approaching on their knees. Scores of people visit every day the rest of the year, many hoping to cure diseases or disabilities with prayer, holy water and, most famously, the healing dirt, which visitors collect from a hole in the floor inside the church." [1]

The priest, Father Roca is a believer in the miraculous, yet he clarifies, "They are the work of the Good Lord.  I always tell people that I have no faith in dirt, I have faith in the Lord." [2]

Legends abound about the site, how the pit of dirt is continually filled, how the cross in the sanctuary came to be found---yet out of these legends miracles still happen.

At first I thought it was ironic that dirt, the indirect victim of the Fall, the essence of our mortal bodies, the genesis of our earthly lives was given such high honor. I thought: shouldn't we be aiming for glorified bodies of the second Adam, not making holy that which is of the first? ... more