San Carlos Cathedral restoration begins.

Even the Blessed Mother of God needs a little work done after some 200 years.

Her face, atop the San Carlos Cathedral, still tilts toward heaven, but it has fallen slightly over the centuries as the stone building has shifted. In the 1940s, well-intentioned parishioners put cement patches in Our Lady of Guadalupe’s cheeks, and later painted her robes blue and white. But cement and paint aren’t compatible with Monterey shale, which needs to breathe. Both sealed moisture into the stone sculpture.

She is so delicate and deteriorated that the rays around her figure fall to dust at a touch, and the cherub that used to sit at her feet is now unrecognizable—its face has crumbled off the stone wall.

And so on Tuesday, May 1, at around 2pm, a team of engineers and preservation experts will delicately remove the statue from its post, a niche at the very top of the Cathedral’s facade, and fly her to a lab in Southern California for a little repair and restoration. Her retreat will also signify the start of the church’s “Cornerstone Campaign,” which needs to raise about $5.5 million to fund extensive repair and conservation.

Monterey’s Our Lady of Guadalupe is said to be the oldest non-indigenous sculpture in California, and she’s stood atop the church since it was erected under the leadership of Fr. Junipero Serra. (Builders completed the stone church in 1794.) It will be hard to see her go, says San Carlos’ Rev. Peter Crivello. “We’re removing the crown of the church,” he says. “It’s something very sacred and beautiful, and yet is in such horrible condition.”