Parade Honors Memory of Virgin of Guadalupe : Festival: Hundreds watch dramatization of Mary’s reported appearance in 1531 as a Mexican Indian.

Hundreds of Catholics paraded through the downtown area Sunday in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico.

The festival included music, dancing, prayer and dramatized scenes from the traditional story of the Virgin Mary’s appearance as an Indian woman on Dec. 9, 1531, before a poor Indian named Juan Diego, when she is said to have asked that the bishop of Mexico build a church in her honor.

A procession down Fourth Street, led by Auxiliary Bishop Michael Driscoll, wound past flat-bed trucks on which local church members, speaking in Spanish, acted out four scenes in which the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego.

The bishop at first did not believe Juan Diego, and demanded that he produce a sign from the Virgin. At each station along the procession route, parishioners re-enacted Juan Diego’s struggle to convince the bishop.

“You know this is a lie. This is a grave sin,” the bishop reprimanded Juan Diego at the third station. Rafael Martinez, 23, a student who worships at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Santa Ana, played the bishop. “It was something real special for me,” Martinez said after his brief role.

Tino Cortez, a Santa Ana body shop owner, played Juan Diego. “I really thought about the words the Virgin Mary told me,” he said. “Of course, I was very nervous too.”

Finally, to the cheers of a large crowd at the intersection of Fourth and Spurgeon streets, the man playing Juan Diego threw roses before the bishop--a miracle in the 16th Century, when the flowers were out of season in Mexico City.

The face of Mary was also miraculously painted on Juan Diego’s cape, according to tradition.

Nicknamed la morenita --”the dark one,” because she appeared as an Indian, Our Lady of Guadalupe drew many indigenous Mexican people to Catholicism, said Msgr. Jaime Soto, who walked in the procession.

The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe now stands at the site in Mexico where the Virgin is said to have appeared.

“She appeared as one of them,” Soto said. “All of a sudden there was a dynamic attraction to the church.”

The attraction to Our Lady of Guadalupe may be even stronger, Soto said. “They say that the Mexican people are 90% Catholic but 100% Guadalupana,” he said with a smile.

Throughout the three-hour festival, a Mariachi band played songs honoring the Virgin, which many people joined in singing.

And people dressed as Aztecs danced to the sound of a drum, weaving around in two lines to create the shape of a cross.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patron saint of the Orange County diocese, and there are three churches here named after her: two in Santa Ana and one in La Habra.

Sigifredo Tapia, a 48-year-old union representative who worships at one of the two Santa Ana churches, carried a banner with a picture of the Virgin on it.

Tapia said he has visited the Mexican basilica built on the spot where Mary is said to have appeared. And after 26 years in the United States, his allegiance to the Virgin of Guadalupe remains strong.

“Whatever part of the world I’m in, I’ll always celebrate this feast,” he said.