"Hundreds of Cubans arrived on Tuesday at the Sanctuary of San Lazaro in the town of El Rincon, in Havana, to make prayers and fulfill promises at the saint, whose day is celebrated on December 17. On this date, no other place in Cuba brings together as many believers as the National Sanctuary of San Lazaro, to which devotees from all over the island come in the days prior carrying candles, flowers and images of the saint, many of them dressed in his characteristic violet-colored attire. Pilgrims crawled on their knees toward the place of worship carrying images of Saint Lazarus and dragging stones. Some showed injuries on their hands from crawling, while a woman fainted due to long hours of exposure to the sun without eating during the pilgrimage. Deisy Hernandez Lopez, a woman who attends the pilgrimage every year, said that on this occasion she asked Saint Lazarus to improve her health. "I have always made him a promise for my health, for my daughter and my grandson, that they be strong. That the cancer does not continue to spread in me, because I have been operated on for cancer in my eye, and [Saint Lazarus] has strengthened my health, that of my daughter and my grandson, and I fulfill it every year."," she said. Eulalia Paez, another pilgrim, recounted that when she was a child her grandmother asked Saint Lazarus for the improvement of an eye condition she suffered from and, as a sign of gratitude, both committed to going to the sanctuary year after year. "In conclusion, my grandmother passed away last year. I continue with my promise and I will continue it until the day I die," she said."