Today is Guadalupe’s feast day. This Queen of Mexico, Empress of America, and patron saint of Mexico is being celebrated all over Mexico and, apparently for the first time in Vatican history, today Pope Francis to Say Mass in Honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
In Mexico, it’s not just a one-day event. Wednesday afternoon, while Chris and I were giving our previously mentioned presentation at the Oaxaca Lending Library, only blocks away festivities began with a religious ceremony at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the side of Llano Park. It was followed that night with a calenda through the streets of the city. Yesterday, Guadalupe’s children, the little Juan Diegos and their peasant sisters, were brought by parents (and grandparents) to the Templo de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (at the north end of Llano Park), where they waited patiently in long lines to enter the church to be blessed and then be photographed in “Guadalupe” scenes.
However, on the streets of Oaxaca, Guadalupe is seen everywhere and everyday…
The other big news from Rome, that Oaxaqueños are celebrating, is the Wealth of Oaxaca craft present in the Vatican Museum — a Christmas tree and Nativity scene decorated with artesania crafted by 142 Oaxacan families from 25 municipalities in the state. The exhibition was inaugurated on December 10 and will run through February 2015 — should you be planning a trip to Italy!
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