Processions, songs, Masses to honor the Virgin of Guadalupe

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When Jaime Hernández was a boy growing up in Mexico, he and his family spent the night of Dec. 11 singing songs in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe and attended a pre-dawn Dec. 12 Mass at the village church in Michoacán.

Hernández, 39, has carried the tradition with him to Corona. On Dec. 11, the eve of the Virgin's feast day, he and about 100 others are planning to pray to the Virgin and sing "serenatas" all night at St. Edward Catholic Church.

"We feel blessed for all the gifts and miracles the Virgin gives us," Hernández said. "This is her day. It's the least we can do for her."

Catholic churches throughout the Inland area will be holding Virgin of Guadalupe celebrations over the next few days to commemorate the day in 1531 when, according to church teaching, a brown-skinned Virgin Mary appeared to a poor indigenous man named Juan Diego on a hillside in what is today Mexico City. In a time when some Spanish colonizers did not even think indigenous people were human, the apparition of a dark-skinned Virgin Mary to an indigenous peasant helped lift the self-image of the native peoples of Mexico.

Pope John Paul II named Our Lady of Guadalupe patroness of the Americas, but she holds special significance to people of Mexican ancestry.

Hernández takes off of work each Dec. 12 to recover from the night of singing. He will awake at 4 a.m. Dec. 11 and not get to sleep until 28 hours later.

He said he never gets tired.

"You don't even feel it," Hernández said. "It's something you don't think about. You set your mind to what you are doing."

Hernández will also take part in a procession around Corona's Grand Boulevard circle Saturday. The walk begins and ends at St. Edward. A Mass will follow. On Sunday, the church will hold an all-day Virgin of Guadalupe festival featuring food, live music, folkloric dancers and crafts.

In Riverside, last year's 2½-mile procession from Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Riverside to Mount Rubidoux attracted 2,500 people. The walk each year culminates with a Mass at the top.

Lincon Mena, 47, has participated in each of the 10 walks and led the organizing committee for five years.

"The whole idea is to feel what San Juan Diego did," the Riverside man said. "There's uncertainty in your life and all of a sudden you meet the Virgin of Guadalupe. Then she changes your life. You realize there's nothing to be afraid of. You need to just trust in God."

In the Coachella Valley, hundreds of people are expected to walk 32 miles from Palm Springs to Coachella Dec. 12 in an intense display of faith.

Last year, about 700 people completed the procession and about 5,000 others walked at least part of the way, said Jesús Mora, a parishioner at Our Lady of Solitude Church in Palm Springs who coordinates the walk. Some travel from western Riverside and San Bernardino counties and Los Angeles to take part, he said. The walk will culminate in a Mass at Our Lady of Soledad Church in Coachella.

Several miles away, thousands are expected to attend a festival at Our Lady of Guadalupe Sanctuary in Mecca. The festival, which will be preceded by a procession through Mecca, will feature dozens of men, women and children performing traditional dances of their native Ocumicho, an indigenous Purépecha village in central Mexico.

Some will spend all night at the church worshipping, praying and singing until an early morning Mass. Unlike the past two years, parishioners will not have to endure a cold desert night. A new temporary church to replace the sanctuary -- where the roof is falling in -- opened last month.

On Dec. 12, parishioners from St. Frances of Rome Church in Wildomar will participate in a two-mile procession that begins at 3 a.m. in Lake Elsinore and ends at the church for "mañanitas" (songs honoring the Virgin) and a Mass. The parish has been sponsoring the procession for more than 50 years.