Our Lady of Guadalupe Mass

[Seeksadvice]

It was an interesting opportunity to see how different groups celebrate events. I never realized that it was such a big thing, or that so many people from different backgrounds would turn out for it.

And, I learned something: when a Mexican woman tells you that the salsa is “spicy,” believe her. Even one of the priests referenced a belief in feeling that stuff in the morning…

 

[JamalChristophr]

Our Lady of Guadalupe and her feast day are huge for Hispanics. I like to see that. It would be nice if it was equally appreciated by non-Hispanic Catholics.

She is the American equivalent of Our Lady of Fatima and Lourdes all rolled into one. Highly underappreciated by us silly Catholics in the U.S. (generally speaking)

 

[starlady]

It was an interesting opportunity to see how different groups celebrate events. I never realized that it was such a big thing, or that so many people from different backgrounds would turn out for it.

And, I learned something: when a Mexican woman tells you that the salsa is “spicy,” believe her. Even one of the priests referenced a belief in feeling that stuff in the morning…

Our Lady of Guadalupe has long been one of my favorites, though I myself am not Hispanic. My husband is, and the majority of my job involves working with and serving the Hispanic community. The parish with the highest concentration of Hispanics has Spanish Mass every evening (all year), but the nine days leading up to December 12th, they have a traditional dance in traditional garb following Mass in honor of Our Lady, followed by a Rosary and novena, and food afterward. It’s quite impressive.

I work with Catholic schools in our Archdiocese, and yesterday, my supervisor and I helped coordinate with one school to have a bilingual Mass and a procession from the church to the gym, where a mariachi band performed, students acted out the apparition, other students performed traditional dances, and sweet bread and hot chocolate was served to all students, faculty and parents.

Side note: I am pretty sensitive to spicy foods (sloooooowly building up my tolerance), so if a Hispanic person tells me something is spicy, I avoid it at all cost haha. Oftentimes, even if they say it’s not spicy at all, my taste buds still detect spice (this happens all the time with my husband).

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe in my area also does the 9 days of celebrations and processions leading up to the actual day. I have been to the last Mass on the feast day twice (which has the matachine dancers, people in traditional Mexican outfits taking up the gifts, a mariachi band providing the music, etc.), but next year I would really like to go to some of the 9 day celebrations, and also the midnight Mass the night before which is the one where Our Lady makes her first “appearance” and is a big deal (and really hard to get a seat).

I discovered the feast celebrations last year after finding it odd that we have a very large, visible Spanish-speaking population in my area that also have a Spanish Mass each Sunday at the local church, yet there was nothing, absolutely nothing special going on at the local church for Our Lady of Guadalupe. It turns out there is this Hispanic National Parish a few miles away that does the whole feast thing and apparently all the Latin American Spanish-speaking folks go there for the feast. Last year they had the Mass schedule for the feast day, which is like 6 Masses, posted on their website, so I just drove over there and went to one. This year there was nothing posted about the feast at all and they didn’t even post their bulletin with anything in it. They apparently put all the info in a flyer that was handed out only at their church. I wasn’t sure if that meant they wished to limit the attendance more to just their own parish members, or if they had had any trouble or concerns and wanted to stay on the downlow (especially in this political climate), or if they feel the Internet is not the best way of reaching their folks. I did notice that I was the only non-Hispanic in attendance out of 500 people at the Mass I went to. It’s a shame that most Catholics in the area probably don’t even realize this feast is going on.

 

[dconklin]

if they feel the Internet is not the best way of reaching their folks.

Many of the Latinos at my parish do not have/list email addresses.

We had a huge celebration at our parish last night. They were still cleaning up this afternoon.

 

[tawny]

The Feast Day is big in our Parish. We always have hot chocolate & sweet bread after Mass.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The confusing thing is that they have been doing this for some years and put it online in the past. But as you say, many of the parishioners have agricultural jobs and do not use a smartphone or computer regularly.

 

[EricF]

My wife and I do not speak a word of Spanish, yet the 5am Mass yesterday morning moved us to tears. The church was packed. The Mass was exuberant, joyful, and seeing the church packed with so many devout believers was amazing. We will be making it a tradition to attend this every year since it is her birthday as well.