Mexicans Celebrate Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe

The Virgin of Guadalupe is also known as the Queen of Mexico.

By Nancy Peckenham

This week the Mexican community in Newburgh is preparing for the biggest feast day of the year that honors Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is said to have appeared to an indigenous Mexican man in 1531, a decade after the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

Mexicans, who make up the largest group of immigrants in the city of Newburgh, have brought with them their faith in Our Lady of Guadalupe and a series of rituals and celebrations that will be performed this weekend.  The focus for the celebrations is St. Patrick’s Church on Liberty Street, where an active ministry has reached out to the Spanish-speaking immigrant community and helped them form self-help committees.

The feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe will be celebrated at St. Patrick's Catholic church.

The Mexican Committee calls itself Hermanos Unidos and is behind the organizing of events to celebrate the Virgin of Guadalupe.  Committee president Amancio Salazar, a 22-year-old resident of the city, just returned this week from Mexico, bringing traditional costumes for the celebration.  He says that some 2,000 people from Mexican communities throughout the Hudson Valley are expected to take part.

Another committee member, Dierdre Cornell, grew up in the city and  has written about Mexicans’ intense devotion to the Virgin Mary in a new book, American Madonna, Crossing Borders with the Virgin Mary.  In the book, Cornell describes how Mexicans living in Newburgh started small home-based celebrations some three decades ago.  As the community grew in size, members brought a massive portrait of the virgin from Mexico and moved celebrations into St. Patrick’s Church.  She also describes how migrants from Mexico often carry tattered images of the Virgin of Guadalupe with them, a symbol of their homeland and their faith.

A runner dressed in a traditional Aztec costume left the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe with the torch on September 29th.

Today, followers of the Virgin have also become part of a relay of a torch that is lit in Mexico at the Basilica of St. Mary of Guadalupe in late September, then passed hand-to-hand to runners who take the torch through the United States to St. Patrick’s cathedral in Manhattan.  There, runners from Newburgh and other surrounding areas will light their own torches.  The torch will arrive in Newburgh at a 7 pm Mass on Sunday, December 12^th to culminate three days of festivities.

The celebrations get started at a Mass at St. Patrick’s church at 8 pm on Thursday, December 9^th, when a group of young people will don costumes brought up from Mexico and perform a traditional Aztec dance.  On Saturday, members of the committee will take the portrait of the virgin down from the wall and place it on the altar for people to experience more closely.  The portrait will be surrounded with roses that symbolize  her miraculousness and flags of both the United States and Mexico  After a Mass at 10 pm, people will stay for an all-night prayer vigil and more traditional dancing, then hold another Mass on Sunday at 5 am.

Folkoric dances are part of the festivities at St. Patrick's.

Following an 11:30 am Mass on Sunday, followers will take her portrait on a procession through the streets of Newburgh, leaving St. Patrick’s church and proceeding down Liberty Street to Washington, up Washington to Mill Street, then back down Ann Street and to the church.   A cultural presentation, featuring folkloric dancers wearing traditional costumes, will be held in the gymnasium of St. Patrick’s school after the procession and a bountiful meal of Mexican foods will be offered.

Dierdre Cornell signing copies of her book last month.

Dierdre Cornell says that the Mexican community will come out in large numbers for the celebration because people want their kids to know where they come from and what their traditions are.   Amancio Salazar, whose three sons and wife are also active participants, says he got involved because he wanted to give back to his community and to make “Newburgh a better place to live.”.

In her book,  Ms. Cornell describes how the torch crosses borders that are closed to many undocumented immigrants and serves as a bridge that connects the religious practices of their families’ past and their futures in Newburgh, where “the Virgin of Guadalupe will be discovered yet again through their eyes.”