Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.A.There, is a 130 year old mistery, attracting about 250 thousand visitors per year. Destination:

Loretto Chapel

What makes this chapel different from all others, is that the main character of the

alleged miracle that ocurred in it, is a stairway.

The chapel was built at the end of the 19th century.

When it was finished, the nuns felt the need of a stairway, that would

take them the upper floor.

They spent 9 days praying to Saint Joseph, who was a carpenter.

On the last day a stranger came knocking on the chapel’s door. He said he was a carpenter and that he could

undertake the task.

He built, single-handedly, the stairway which is

considered to be a prodigy in wood workmanship.

No one knows how it became upright. It has no central support

beams.

The carpenter, after having used no nails or glue to build the stairway,

disappeared without a trace. He didn’t even wait around for payment.

A legend was born in Santa Fe, and the belief became widespread, that the carpenter was really Saint Joseph…

…sent by Jesus Christ in answer to the nun’s prayers. Since then, the

stairway became known as “miraculous”, and a point of

pilgrimage.

“We have three misteries here”, explains the chapel’s PR: “the first

mistery is, no one knows to this date, who was the man who built the

stairway.”

“The second mistery is that arquitects, engineers and

scientists state they cannot understand how the stairway

balances itself steady.”

“And the third mistery: where did the wood come from? They have run

scientific tests and there is nothing like it in the whole region!”

One detail has only strengthened the belief in the alleged miracle: the stairway has 33 steps, Christ’s age.

M. Gallo