Ante el santuario de la esperanza: imágenes que curan en Soracá (Boyacá, Colombia)

in the small town of soracá, near tunja, boyacá, in the colombian andes, the roman catholic priest alvaro de jesús puerta offers all first saturdays of each month a healing mass. this mass belongs to a series of three events which starts the thursday before with the imposition of his hands on the sick, followed by a session of exorcisms of evil on friday. the events are an occasion for a huge gathering of sufferers and believers who come from all over the country, believers who have made of father puerta the center of a ritual of healing and supernatural gifts bestowed upon the crowd by the mediation of the holy virgin. during these celebrations the priest makes extensive use of sacred icons of the virgin of hope and of jesus of nazareth to heal and cure the sick and the sufferer and to dispense divine grace and favors to the crowd of the faithful. the aim of this essay, therefore, is to present a first ethnographic account of saturday's healing events, as well as to open up some analytical paths to explain father puerta's ritual triad in soracá.