Patroness of the Americas: Tradition unites celebrants in Guadalupe feast
By Christina Leslie
Correspondent
and Erick Rommel
Head Staff Writer
During hours usually reserved for sleep, thousands of Catholics in the diocese gathered in the pre-dawn hours Dec. 11 and Dec. 12 to celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patron saint of Mexico and Patroness of the Americas.
The early morning celebration is part of a tradition dating to the 16th century when those who celebrated the feast attended Mass before heading to the fields to work.
In many parishes with large numbers of Hispanic members, this tradition continues. Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, New Brunswick, celebrated two early morning Masses. By 4:30 a.m., the sanctuary was filled beyond capacity, with congregants standing three deep in the side and center aisles and every pew crowded with large families sitting shoulder to shoulder. During the Mass, roses adorned with baby’s breath were passed overhead to be placed at the feet of a statue of the Virgin.
Similar scenes took place in other parishes celebrating the feast, including Our Lady of Fatima, Perth Amboy, and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, New Brunswick. St. John the Baptist Parish, New Brunswick, celebrated the feast during the evening of Dec. 12 for those who were unable to make the early Masses.
In La Asunción Parish, Perth Amboy, people gathered by the hundreds Dec. 11 to celebrate the feast a day early. Many attendees wore bright costumes and traditional serapes, mantillas and sombreros.
Flags from many Latin American countries were suspended along the aisles, and the shrine in the sanctuary was flanked by the flags of the United States and Mexico. A painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe rested atop a rocky crag bedecked with dozens of roses and cacti. A drawn rendering of St. Juan Diego looking up at the Blessed Virgin Mary with awe was nestled among the boulders.
The feast day commemorates the Blessed Virgin Mary’s appearance to Diego in December 1531. The Virgin Mary was dressed as an Aztec princess with a black rope tied around her waist, a sign she was pregnant. This is the only apparition in which she appears with a baby in her womb. Because of this, she is known as the Protectress of the Unborn.
A Nahuatl Indian, Diego was the first indigenous person in the Americas to be declared a saint. As a probable member of the Texcoco kingdom, bordering the Aztec empire in what is now Mexico, he symbolizes the Church’s evangelization of the native peoples of the New World during the Spanish conquest.
Our Lady of Guadalupe is especially important to Mexican Catholics because she came to them as an indigenous woman. She did not sit on a throne or a pedestal as a European Mary; she spoke with Juan Diego while standing next to him.
The Luna family of Perth Amboy celebrated the feast in La Asunción Parish. Parents Guillermo and Rosario carried their two small children to the church wrapped tightly in blankets to ward against the December cold. Underneath, they were dressed in native Mexican garb. Axel, 3, and Lexie, 2, toddled up to the shrine to lay a bouquet of roses as their father proudly said in halting English, “I had to take them to see La Virgin.”
Giovanna Perez held her two-year-old daughter Alexia, also dressed in festive Mexican garb, during Mass in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church. It was the young mother’s first Our Lady of Guadalupe celebration. “This is amazing!” she exclaimed, as her son Marcos wriggled out his father’s arms and clung to her. “My husband is Mexican, and I wanted to learn something new. It’s his tradition.”
*The attached/referenced article was originally published in The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen, and is protected under U.S. and international copyright law