Parishioners gather for Mass and procession
By Eileen Jevis
Staff writer
Parishioners at St. Anthony of Padua Church on Syracuse’s South Side gathered on Dec. 9 to celebrate the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Our Lady of Guadalupe is associated with a series of five Marian apparitions to a humble indigenous Aztec named Juan Diego. The first apparition took place in Mexico on Dec. 9, 1531. The Blessed Mother asked Diego to go to the bishop and tell him to build a church where she said, “I will show and offer all of my love, my compassion, my help, and my protection to my people.” The bishop asked for a sign that the message was really from Our Lady. The Blessed Mother granted his request and a few days later, she showed Diego the location of beautiful Castilian roses that bloomed on infertile ground despite frost. When Diego returned to the bishop and presented the roses, the image of Our Lady began to form on Diego’s tilma. The bishop fell to his knees and had a church built at her request.
Statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe on display at St. Anthony of Padua Church is surrounded by roses — a reminder of the first miracle she performed in 1531.
Father Brendan Foley, parochial vicar at St. Anthony’s, said it is important to celebrate this feast day because everything about Mary reflects the goodness of God who called her to play an important role in our salvation. “Essentially, all of our celebrations of Mary or the lives of the saints we observe with gratitude are because of what God has done in them,” he said. “Reflecting on Mary appearing as she did to Juan Diego and what followed after in the spread of the Gospel in that part of the world, shows us the deep desire our Mother Mary had for us to know her Son.”
After the Mass, the congregants gathered for a prayerful procession through the neighborhood. Parishioner Fanny Villarreal, originally from Lima, Peru, moved to Syracuse 30 years ago. “When you believe in God and believe in Mary, you can feel her presence here right now,” she said.
Trinidad Ramos, originally from Guatemala, said he feels very at home at St. Anthony’s Parish because the church celebrates the Eucharist in English and Spanish. He said that like many other countries — Mexico, Central America, South America and his country — the community gathers to pray, sing, recite prayers and recount the story of the appearance of Mary to Juan Diego.
“Today’s procession and Mass was good because more people come each year,” said Ramos. “People who are both English and Spanish-speaking understand the importance of Our Lady of Guadalupe and how she brought Jesus to us.”
“It’s all about the love we have for one another. People coming together from different countries and different languages shows the love that we all have in common,” added Villarreal.
At the end of the procession, the statue of Our Lady was returned to the altar where each participant placed a rose at her feet to symbolize the first miracle presented to Juan Diego almost 500 years ago.
“I think when you participate in a celebration like the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, you experience the truth of all the richness that entails the life of a disciple of Jesus,” added Father Foley. “There are always new heights of relationship with God, lives of more saints to discover, and expressions of the beauty of the Catholic Church to be found. Our lives as disciples can only be enriched when we consider the solidarity of what it means to live in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.”
