Feast of Guadalupe: For Mexicans Only?

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During our English Masses in my Texas parish and in our English section of the Sunday bulletin, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is not mentioned at all. However, in the small Spanish section of the bulletin, the whole multi-day festivity is laid out (in Spanish only).

Is this feast for Mexicans only? If not, then why does it certainly appear that way? I know OL of Guadalupe is not only an approved apparition, but it’s also a source of cultural pride for Mexicans. Is this the reason?

Yes, I know the festivities will be in Spanish only, but why can’t it be for us whites/non Mexicans, too? Aren’t we as Catholic as our Mexican brothers and sisters?

Let me apologize in advance if this post doesn’t seem charitable enough; I am upset.

Thanks,

Topaz ❤️
 
Goodness, no, it’s not “for Mexicans only.” Of course, it has special meaning for those of Mexican descent; but Dec. 12 was declared a feast for ALL countries of the Americas. We have bilingual celebrations in my area of TX.
 
Thank you, Agnes.

So, since I don’t speak Spanish, should I attend? I’m still trying to figure out why it doesn’t seem “non-Spanish-speaking friendly.”
 
No. It is not a feast for Mexicans only.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of the Americas. That includes all nations in North and South America. But it HAS taken a while for non-Spanish speakers to catch on. I think part of the problem is that the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe comes just four days after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Since Our Lady under the title of the Immaculate Conception is the patroness of the United States that particular feast day has been emphasized. (The first half of December seems to have a number of feast days for saints who are very important as patrons/patronesses: St. Nicholas and St. Lucy come to mind.)

But I do think there is growing interest in the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. But since so many of the traditional celebrations surrounding this day originated in Mexico, it is parishes with large Hispanic populations that end to have the bigger celebrations.

(This seems kind of like how parishes with large Italian populations tend to make a big deal about St. Joseph’s Day while parishes with large Irish populations tend to emphasize St. Patrick’s Day.)
 
SMHW said:
No. It is not a feast for Mexicans only.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of the Americas. That includes all nations in North and South America. But it HAS taken a while for non-Spanish speakers to catch on. I think part of the problem is that the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe comes just four days after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Since Our Lady under the title of the Immaculate Conception is the patroness of the United States that particular feast day has been emphasized. (The first half of December seems to have a number of feast days for saints who are very important as patrons/patronesses: St. Nicholas and St. Lucy come to mind.)

But I do think there is growing interest in the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. But since so many of the traditional celebrations surrounding this day originated in Mexico, it is parishes with large Hispanic populations that end to have the bigger celebrations.

(This seems kind of like how parishes with large Italian populations tend to make a big deal about St. Joseph’s Day while parishes with large Irish populations tend to emphasize St. Patrick’s Day.)
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That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the insights.🙂
 
It’s unfortunate that your parish did not “welcome” the non-Mexican parishioners more, but no, the feast is definitely not just for Mexicans.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is the Patroness and Queen of the Americas, all of them, Canada, Mexico, U.S., El Salvador, Cuba, etc.

I think some people (such as perhaps the one who laid out the bulletin) seem to forget this fact, since Mexicans seem to have such a strong devotion to her, given that she appeared in that country. They forget she is indeed the Patroness of us all.

However, the way to remind people of this fact would be to get non-Mexicans and Hispanics interested in OLG. Lay out the information in the bulletin in English as well. Have an English and Spanish Mass, or a bilingual one. Put in the bulletin that she is the Patroness of the Americas, not just Mexico.

I love OLG, I love the story of her. The story brings tears to my eyes.
 
Topaz1128 said:
During our English Masses in my Texas parish and in our English section of the Sunday bulletin, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is not mentioned at all. However, in the small Spanish section of the bulletin, the whole multi-day festivity is laid out (in Spanish only).

Is this feast for Mexicans only?
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Our Lady of Guadalupe is the Patroness of North America. Of course we all need to be celebrating her feast, but I think what languages Masses are said in is up to the Pastor. Of note: afaik, the only object on earth ever declared to be of supernatural origin by the Vatican is the image on the tilma of Juan Diego.
 
Of course all Catholics can celebrate the Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe! My parish celebrated her today, and we offer both English and Spanish services. Actually, the Blessed Virgin of Guadalupe is not only for Mexico… she is also the patron of Atlanta, GA! So of course you can celebrate her big day today! Give thanks to the Lord for choosing such a wonderful Mother for us as Christians! 🙂
 
agnes_therese said:
Goodness, no, it’s not “for Mexicans only.” Of course, it has special meaning for those of Mexican descent; but Dec. 12 was declared a feast for ALL countries of the Americas. We have bilingual celebrations in my area of TX.
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There are three major Marian feasts inside of less than 30 days.

The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception (December 8)
The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe (December 12)
The Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God (January 1)

To use a term from my college literature class, Marian celebrations seem to be a “framing device” around the birth of Our Lord.
 
We had a beautiful Mass in honor of Our Lady of Guadelupe this morning with Fr. Wade Menezes as the celebrant. Our pastor concelebrated and our Deacon was present, too. Fr. Menezes, a priest of the Fathers of Mercy, is here this week for our parish Advent Mission. Father’s beautiful chanting voice together with the choir and our congregation who have been practicing the new translations for a couple of months, contributed to celebrating the feast day as a solemn and holy occassion, not one dominated with cultural tendencies. Father gave a wonderful homily about the Blessed Mother. And of course he mentioned Our Lady of Guadelupe as the patroness of the Americas and pointed out that the image of OL Guadelupe is the only known image of a pregnant Virgin Mary.
 
Topaz1128 said:
During our English Masses in my Texas parish and in our English section of the Sunday bulletin, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is not mentioned at all. However, in the small Spanish section of the bulletin, the whole multi-day festivity is laid out (in Spanish only).

Is this feast for Mexicans only? If not, then why does it certainly appear that way? I know OL of Guadalupe is not only an approved apparition, but it’s also a source of cultural pride for Mexicans. Is this the reason?

Yes, I know the festivities will be in Spanish only, but why can’t it be for us whites/non Mexicans, too? Aren’t we as Catholic as our Mexican brothers and sisters?

Let me apologize in advance if this post doesn’t seem charitable enough; I am upset.

Thanks,

Topaz ❤️
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We are having a Mass in Spanish tonight to celebrate the feast and I was just asked to do the 2nd reading in English. BTW…I don’t speak Spanish either and I am honored to have been asked.
 
zab said:
We had a beautiful Mass in honor of Our Lady of Guadelupe this morning with Fr. Wade Menezes as the celebrant. Our pastor concelebrated and our Deacon was present, too. Fr. Menezes, a priest of the Fathers of Mercy, is here this week for our parish Advent Mission. Father’s beautiful chanting voice together with the choir and our congregation who have been practicing the new translations for a couple of months, contributed to celebrating the feast day as a solemn and holy occassion, not one dominated with cultural tendencies. Father gave a wonderful homily about the Blessed Mother. And of course he mentioned Our Lady of Guadelupe as the patroness of the Americas and pointed out that the image of OL Guadelupe is the only known image of a pregnant Virgin Mary.
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That is interesting. I didn’t realize that OL of Guadalupe was the only known image of the Virgin Mary being pregnant.

Well, I attended 8:30am Mass (in English) this morning in the small chapel of my parish. It was in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe and was marvelous. Perhaps next year I will “crash” the main evening Mass/celebration in the main sanctuary. 😉
 
She is Our Lady of the Americas, so no, it is not for Mexicans only. If fact, we are having a bilingual mass/celebration tonight. 🙂
 
I attended Mass this morning to celebrate the feast (though I got there pretty late). This is not a parish that seems to have a lot of Spanish-speakers, but they certainly had a Mass to celebrate it. Isn’t it a “feast” (i.e., a second-degree celebration, after solemnities)? Doesn’t that mean that any parish celebrating daily Mass on that day would have to celebrate it?

Edwin
 
Thank you for those who gave insight into this feast. It should emphasized a bit more that it is not primarily a feast for Mexican Catholics but all Catholics even if its not a holy day of obligation. My diocese has been doing some Masses and special prayer things at various parishes in the region in both English and Spanish to honor the Blessed Mother in the past week or so and the last one will be tonight on the feast day.
 
Indeed, as many have already pointed out, Our Lady of Guadalupe has been designated by the Universal Catholic Church as Patroness of the Americas. So the answer is clearly NO!

May I offer a perhaps unique perspective?

I am an Eastern (Byzantine) Rite Catholic. Our Church has historical ties to Eastern Europe, and is often considered a mostly “ethnic” church even by fellow Catholics who know us well. We suffer from no loss of opportunity in our tradition to venerate Our Lady and commemorate her appearances to us. Our Lady’s appearances in Eastern Europe as frequently recalled in our tradition are fairly well known (e.g. Mariapocs, Czestochowa, etc.; Blessed John Paul II made well publicized pilgrimages to these holy sites). That said, we are Americans as well, and even though we commemorate many of Our Lady’s appearances already and follow a slightly different liturgical calendar than our Latin rite brothers and sisters, our Metropolitan Archbishop (of the Pittsburgh Ruthenian Metropolia) at the time added this feast to our calendar upon the OLG patronal declaration without hesitation.

In our daily worship, there is a place in our Divine Liturgy reserved for chanting a unique troparion, or hymn which expresses the day’s commemoration.

For your interest, I’ve typed the one written for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe below. Classic troparia (plural form) in our liturgical form are regarded as beautiful, poetic prayers in their own respect.

Blessings to all!

When you appeared in the New World, O Mother of God,
you fixed your image on Juan Diego’s rose-laden tilma.
All the poor, hungry, and oppressed seek you, Lady of Guadalupe.
We gaze upon your miraculous icon and find hope,
crying out to your Son concealed in your womb.
Hear our plea for justice, O most merciful Lord!
 
All the Feast Days are celebrated in the church mass and listed on the liturgical calender.

Its called “obligation” because of the Precepts of the CC. Which in truth is the minimal level or required attendence. #2041-42 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

For example…

2041 The precepts of the Church are set in the context of a moral life bound to and nourished by liturgical life. The obligatory character of these positive laws decreed by the pastoral authorities is meant to guarantee to the faithful the very necessary minimum in the spirit of prayer and moral effort, in the growth in love of God and neighbor:

2042 The first precept (“You shall attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor”) requires the faithful to sanctify the day commemorating the Resurrection of the Lord as well as the principal liturgical feasts honoring the mysteries of the Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the saints; in the first place, by participating in the Eucharistic celebration, in which the Christian community is gathered, and by resting from those works and activities which could impede such a sanctification of these days.

The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a significant day without doubt. To look at what happened in Mexico with the conversion of the Aztecs, which in essense, its believed the Blessed Mother appeared through the HS directly because of the human sacrifice of the youth. So today it becomes of most importance, due to abortion here in the Americas. Which in truth has now surpassed the human sacrifice in Mexico.

Of course Cortes coming from Spain behind the shield of the Catholic Church also played a role. I believe he was appauled since they were performing 200-300 sacrifices daily, he had asked them to stop. The Aztec response was that their gods said …No!

However the final conversion was the Miracle of the Tilma. 9-million in 10-years in an area where Catholics had little to no success with missionary work.

Its pretty amazing how the Lord works in the world when all seems dire, and hope seems lost. And its pretty dire here in the state’s at the moment. I believe stopping the abortion would go a very way today to bring about the supernatural change needed here.

Peace
 
Topaz1128 said:
During our English Masses in my Texas parish and in our English section of the Sunday bulletin, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is not mentioned at all. However, in the small Spanish section of the bulletin, the whole multi-day festivity is laid out (in Spanish only).

Is this feast for Mexicans only? If not, then why does it certainly appear that way?
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the religious feast is for everyone, Pope Pius XII declared her Empress of the Americas. The celebration or fiest however is probably planned and paid for by the “Spanish Mass group” or a confraternity called the Guadalupanos who evangelize through her and usually arrange these fiestas. If you think the whole parish would like to be involved let your pastor know.

two websites in particular have great articles today, catholic.org and catholicexchange.com

btw I am sure the Spanish speaking element of many parishes feel slighted and uninvited when English-language only events are scheduled and announced in the bulletin.
 
It would be wonderful to attract the “Anglo” population to the celebrations, since OLG is the patroness of all the Americas, from Canada to Chile. One of the difficulties with celebrations of this feast in the United States is that, despite the large numbers of faithful Hispanic Catholics who attend the various liturgies and events, many attend Mass only once a year (or twice if you count Ash Wednesday) and view OLG as a patriotic event as much as a religious one. It is more important in Mexican secular society than September 16, Mexico’s independence day.

For Anglos and non-Mexican Hispanics, certain aspects of the celebrations can be disturbing, such as the earsplitting band competitions inside church buildings, or the many hymns which make specific references to the Mexican “race” and to Mary’s dark skin. We had over 2,000 people at the Mass this year, held in a school gym for lack of space in the church. However, most of them will not be seen for another year. If only those individuals would put as much energy and devotion into Christmas and Easter.
 
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