In this brief presentation, we will attempt to explain the relationship of sanctuaries or shrines to popular piety.   This basic relationship may be characterized as follows: while on the one hand the definition of a shrine includes being a place of rich liturgical activity, not limited to popular piety, yet on the other hand, popular piety is often the reason for the existence of a particular shrine and the chief motivation attracting the faithful to it.
     Jesus, the Risen Lord, is the "supreme and definitive sanctuary  around which the Christian community gathers."  Hence, a shrine, which often derives from popular piety, is a sign of the active and continuing saving presence of the Lord in history.  It is especially a place of respite in which the pilgrim people of God experience His presence through a renewal and strengthening of devotion .
       For the faithful, among other things, shrines provide the following: a reminder of "the original extraordinary event which has given rise to persistent devotion"; a privileged place where many signs "of divine assistance and of the intercession of Blessed Virgin Mary, the Saints or the Blessed" are manifest; "a call to conversion, to re-consecrate oneself to the call of a life of faith, hope and charity, and to a fuller following of Christ.  Shrines are, therefore, signs of God's merciful intervention in human history; memorials to the Incarnation and Redemption.
     Shrines or sanctuaries are especially places for cultic celebration in which the Liturgy of the Church holds a pre-eminent place.  "Among the functions ascribed to sanctuaries, and confirmed by the Code of Canon Law, is that of fostering the Liturgy.  ... The faithful who come to a shrine from diverse places should be able to return comforted in spirit, and edified by the liturgical celebrations: ... both priests and pilgrims take back to their own places the strong cultic impressions that they have experienced in shrines."  In addition to the celebration of the Sacraments of Penance, Holy Eucharist, the Anointing of the Sick and the other sacraments, popular piety can have an important role in the cultic experience of a sanctuary.
     The term "popular piety" designates those diverse cultic expressions of a private or community nature which, in the context of the Christian faith, are inspired predominantly not by the Sacred Liturgy but by forms deriving from a particular nation or people or from their culture.  Popular piety has rightly been regarded as "a treasure of the people of God" and "manifests a thirst for God known only to the poor and to the humble, rendering them capable of a generosity and of sacrifice to the point of heroism in testifying to the faith."  At the same time, popular piety displays  "an acute sense of the profound attributes of God: paternity, providence, His constant and loving presence. It also generates interior attitudes otherwise rarely seen to the same degree: patience, an awareness of the Cross in every-day life, detachment, openness to others and devotion."
     In conclusion we may say that the popular pieties associated with sanctuaries, by being attuned to the subjective feeling and devotion of the believer, beyond the graces received through the devotion itself, are an excellent means of subjective preparation for the objective graces granted through sacraments celebrated at each shrine, especially the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist.