Whether you’re a devout Catholic or lost soul fresh from the blackjack tables, this consecrated Macau event ought to catch your interest.

A colourful display of the region’s Portuguese heritage, The Procession of Our Lady of Fátima draws the local faithful onto the streets of Macau each May to worship the Virgin Mary and her many professed miracles. As they parade through the city, congregants and visiting pilgrims wearing traditional white vestments recite Roman Catholic incantations, and carry a resplendent statue of the Holy Mother aloft on a bed of white roses. For the pious and non-believer alike, it’s a sight to behold.

The parade dates back to 1917, when it’s said a visage of the Virgin Mother presented herself to three children in the Portuguese rural parish of Fátima, disclosing three holy secrets, and imploring the children to piety and repentance. News of the divine apparition’s alleged appearance soon made its way to the furthest reaches of the Portuguese Empire. To this day, throughout the far-flung Catholic world, thousands of congregants gather annually to commemorate the ostensible miracle.

In Macau, the local procession begins at St. Domingo’s Church, one of the region’s loveliest colonial buildings. Painted in pastel yellows and vibrant greens, the church was built in 1587 and makes up a key corner of the former colony’s historic city centre, which was recently designated a World Heritage Site by Unesco. The church was renovated in 1997, opening a museum on its second and third floors, which contains an illuminating collection of paintings, statuary and liturgical relics illustrating the history of the Roman Catholic Church in Asia. From St. Domingo’s the procession winds its way through central Macau to Penha Chapel, where an open air mass is said in the evening.

This hallowed, historic event stands in sharp relief against Macau’s current reputation as the glitzy, Asian twin to the original Sin City, Las Vegas. So, if the casinos have left you dispossessed and suddenly soul-searching, the songs of the saved and the holy mother’s forgiving gaze might just temp you into the fold. Miracles have happened.