Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan del Valle, San Juan

The devotion originated in 1623 in San Juan de los Lagos, Mexico, where a child reportedly returned to life through Mary's intercession. The Texas shrine was established in the 1920s by Oblate missionaries serving farmworkers, gaining prominence after 1949 when Father Jose Maria Azpiazu commissioned a replica of the original Mexican statue and fostered the devotion among the growing Mexican-American population of the Rio Grande Valley.

In 1623, in the small town of San Juan de los Lagos in Jalisco, Mexico, an itinerant acrobat family was performing when their young daughter fell and died during the act. An indigenous woman who cared for the local church urged the grieving parents to place a small neglected statue of the Virgin Mary upon their daughter's body while she prayed. According to tradition, the child returned to life.

News of the miracle spread rapidly. The statue—an image of the Immaculate Conception—became a focus of veneration. Over the following centuries, San Juan de los Lagos developed into one of Mexico's most important pilgrimage sites, second only to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

The Texas continuation of this devotion began more humbly. In 1920, Father Alfonso Jalbert of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate built a small wooden chapel in San Juan, Texas, to serve the agricultural workers of the Rio Grande Valley. It functioned as a mission of St. Margaret Mary Church in nearby Pharr.

The transformation came in 1949 when Father Jose Maria Azpiazu became pastor. A Spaniard by birth who had ministered in Mexico, he recognized the deep devotion to Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos among his parishioners. He commissioned a replica statue from Guadalajara and began actively promoting the devotion. A new shrine was built and dedicated in 1954 with the blessing of Bishop Mariano Garriaga of Corpus Christi.

The shrine's reputation grew steadily through the 1950s and 1960s. Then came October 23, 1970, and everything changed.