Was today not a Sunday in Advent, it would be the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. To celebrate, I headed to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Because it would have been their patronal feast, the parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe started the festivities at midnight. At midnight there was singing and what sounded like cheers from a pep rally. At 1 am, there was a Mass. After Mass, there was more singing and such in the Church with traditional Mexican food and snacks in the cafeteria. There were more activities after that, but it was 3 am with snow, so I didn't stay longer.
Our Lady of Guadalupe is another church that has the look of a temporary church that has become permanent. There are stained glass windows but given that it was dark, it was hard to make out what they were. I saw the Nativity, the Visitation, the Holy Family, and the Wedding at Cana.
Mass was absolutely packed! It was standing room only and the standing room was packed. What was most interesting was seeing all of the men in church. Lots of young, single men! Some had mohawks and everything. And they sang! Many people brought flowers to place before the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It was so cute?/sweet? to see these tough young Hispanic males bringing bunches of roses to place before Our Lady. Some of them looked rather shy about it.
The other thing I noticed was that even though there were probably 400-500 people at Mass, only 1/4 went up to Communion. It was quite different from other parishes were nearly everyone goes.
As Mass was in Spanish, I can't tell you much about what happened. I know the homily was about Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego. The readings were from the 3rd Sunday in Advent. I think the music was traditional for the culture.
Pictures:
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Mosaic Outside
View from the Back Pew
Close Up of Altar
Baptismal Font
VIII: The Holy Women
Our Lady of Guadalupe and Flowers
Website of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Picture from Rome of the West
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