[1] Historical accounts state that the statue was originally found by three fishermen who miraculously caught many fish after invoking the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The building in which the image is venerated was granted the title of a minor basilica by Pope John Paul II in 1980, and is the largest Marian shrine in the world,[3] being able to hold up to 45,000 worshippers.

The following papal documents concern the famed statue: According to the account of the discovery of the statue in October 1717, Dom Pedro de Almeida, Count of Assumar and Governor of the Province of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, was passing through the area of Guaratinguetá, a small city in the Paraíba river valley,[8] during a trip to Vila Rica, an important gold mining site.

As the people of Guaratinguetá decided to hold a feast in his honour, three fishermen, Domingos Garcia, João Alves, and Filipe Pedroso went down to the Paraíba waters to fish.

The fishermen, having a run of bad luck, cast their nets in the River Paraiba and dragged up a headless statue of the Virgin Mary.

[2] The fishermen named the statue Nossa Senhora da Conceição Aparecida (English: Our Lady of the Conception who appeared).

[4] Devotion to the statue grew rapidly, particularly among Afro-Brazilians, not only for its black Madonna status, but also because it was reported to have performed a miracle for an enslaved young man.

In 1737 the priest of Guaratinguetá built her a chapel[2] on the Morro dos Coqueiros (Hill of Coconut Palms), where public visits began in July 1745.

[2] The papal coronation of the image of Aparecida was a major event attended by many people and by civil authorities including President Rodrigues Alves, who made the point of witnessing the act in spite of the separation of Church and State that had been instituted when Brazil became a Republic, less than twenty years before.

On 16 July 1930, Pope Pius XI declared the Immaculate Conception under the title of Our Lady Aparecida to be the principal patroness of Brazil, namely widespread in the Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro.

The pontifical decree indicated that Pope Leo XIII granted the approval on the devotion of the image under the title "Nossa Senhora da Conceição Apparecida".

In addition, Saint Pope Pius X established the Office of the Mass under this honor and allowing this devotion to spread due to the widespread piety of the Brazilian people.

[2] They arrived from the sanctuary of the Virgin of Altötting in Germany and took on the responsibility for the shrine of Our Lady Aparecida, making it the first Redemptorist parish in Latin America.

In his Apostolic message, the Pontiff mentioned the coronation of 1904, the Patronage granted in 1930, and his culminating purpose of consecration of the shrine as a Basilica during that time.

[6] Pope Francis installed a replica of the same Marian image within the Vatican Gardens in September 2016 via the diplomatic efforts of the Brazilian embassy to the Holy See.

[17] On her feast day in 1995, a public holiday, an incident later known as "kicking of the saint" took place when televangelist Sérgio Von Helder (or Helde), of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), insulted and kicked a replica of Our Lady Aparecida, and said that "it could not do anything for you", on a late-night religious program broadcast by UCKG television station Rede Record.

The renewed coronation was presided by the Archbishop emeritus of Rio de Janeiro, Cardinal Eugênio Sales, in the capacity of special papal envoy of Pope John Paul II.

Pope Francis celebrated Mass at the shrine on July 24, 2013, and entrusted his pontificate as well as the World Youth Day to the maternal protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary.