Our Lady of Guadalupe – December 12

Once again, today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

When I was a girl, this feast was not a major focus of my life. Growing up in Eastern Washington, in a community with relatively few Mexican Americans, we simply didn’t celebrate this feast.

Then I married into a Mexican American family and all that changed. I learned much more about Our Lady of Guadalupe. I discovered the traditions associated with her feast day. I got up early one morning to join the community in Oakland in singing the mañanitas at 5:30 a.m. We celebrated together in the liturgy and then had a wonderful breakfast of posole, champurrado and pan dulce (soup, chocolate/cocoa, and sweet Mexican bread) with the Mexican immigrants who were our English language students and friends.

When I was pregnant with our first child and nervous about the course of the pregnancy, my mother-in-law advised, “Just put it in Our Lady of Guadalupe’s hands. It’ll all be OK.” She was right. More than once since then Our Lady has gotten a problem dumped into her hands. It always turns out OK – not always the way I expected, but always OK.

Tonight we’ll again celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We don’t get up for mañanitas these days, but we do celebrate. We’ll get out the nice dishes, have a tasty dinner, and eat pan dulce with champurrado for dessert. And once again, we’ll celebrate the special relationship with Our Lady we enjoy as a Mexican American family.