COUNTYWIDE : Latino Catholics to Celebrate Patroness

About a dozen county Catholic churches with large Latino populations will hold special celebrations today to commemorate the legend of a 16th-Century appearance of the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

The festivities, some beginning before dawn, include Masses, mariachi performances, candlelight processions, folk dances and traditional Mexican foods.

The celebration commemorates a vision of the Virgin Mary said to have been seen by Juan Diego in Mexico City in 1531.

Among Catholics of Mexican descent, the holiday ranks right behind Christmas and Easter, said Msgr. Jaime Soto of the Diocese of Orange. The Virgin Mary, also known as Our Lady of Guadalupe, is the patroness of Mexico and the diocese.

“For many of us who are Hispanic, and particularly those who are Mexican, we really see this apparition as the birth of our faith here in the Americas,” Soto said.

According to the legendary tale, Juan Diego was on Tepayac Hill in what is now Mexico City when the vision appeared to him. The apparition is said to have asked him to build a shrine to her on the site.

When Diego conveyed the news, the local bishop doubted his word. Undaunted, he returned to the hill on Dec. 12, 1531, when the Virgin Mary is said to have told him to pick roses, which were blooming even though they were out of season.

Diego, the tale continues, picked the flowers and placed them in his tilma , a cape-like garment. When he laid the roses at the bishop’s feet, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared on the tilma , which remains preserved in the basilica of a church that stands on the site, Soto said.

Diego’s vision came shortly after the Spanish conquest and was a critical event in the Catholic evangelization of Mexico, Soto said.

“The great power of this image is that Mary appeared as an Indian woman,” Soto said. “The great power of that event is that the Mother of God chose to identify with the poor and the oppressed of the conquest. This wasn’t a Spanish image. This was a uniquely indigenous image and because of that event, the faith began to take root.”

Bishop Norman F. McFarland of Orange will preside at Mass tonight at the Church of Our Lady of Pilar in Santa Ana, the home of one of the largest Latino congregations in the county. Traditional mariachi music will accompany the celebration.

Some congregations, including St. Joseph’s Church in Placentia and Our Lady of St. Anne’s Church in Santa Ana, will conduct early morning processions, holding lighted candles and singing Mananitas , a serenade to the Virgin Mary.

At La Purisima Church in Orange, a novena--nine days of prayers that proceed a feast day--began Dec. 4.. Each night, the celebration has been dedicated to or sponsored by either a different Mexican state, the church’s children’s catechism class or its youth group.

Each celebration features a formal procession with banners, flowers and participants in native dress. A large statue of the Virgin Mary is placed at the top of the altar, with rose arrangements covering the front and sides of the altar and the Mexican flag draped across the back of the statue.

During two of the celebrations, church youth re-enacted the story of the apparition, complete with costumes and music.