SACRAMENTO — Catholics from around the globe and within the Sacramento region are celebrating a crucial holiday.
December 12 is often called the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe. For nearly 500 years, she’s grow to be a logo of affection, hope, and unity, and for the people of Mexico and Mexicans living within the United States, she holds a special place of their faith and culture.
Prayers and a procession in downtown Sacramento honored Mexico’s patron saint.
“In Mexico, the Guadalupana is primary, and since Mexican immigrants got here to this country, they brought with them their cultural traditions,” Reverand Juan Francisco Bracamontes said, translated to English.
Father Bracamontes said the brown-skinned Madonna—or La Virgen Morena, as she’s known—runs deep in Mexican culture.
“We carry her in our hearts, she’s in our blood,” he said. “Every Mexican is a Guadalupano.”
Catholics imagine she appeared five centuries ago on a cloak of an indigenous peasant named Juan Diego. That image served because the catalyst, converting hundreds of thousands of indigenous people to Roman Catholics.
Today, she’s seen because the champion of the poor and oppressed.
Millions of pilgrims travel to Mexico City’s Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe to wish to her.
People in distress are known to drop to their knees and crawl to her altar in hopes of trading physical pain for spiritual healing.
On the morning of December 12, the Mexican Catholic community celebrates the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe with a conventional folk song followed by a morning mass, traditional dance and meals.
It’s a celebration of giving due to Mexico’s patron saint who believers say is required now greater than ever.
