Celebrating Our Lady of Guadalupe

Candlelight and roses heightened the senses at Friday night’s mariachi mass, the finale to a weeklong celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Saint Mary’s College. With Latinos/as making up 25 percent of the SMC student body, Father Hai Ho with Mission and Ministry says the events integrated faith and culture “especially for the Latino/Latina community, having devotion and honor to the blessed Virgin Mary who appeared as an apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe.”

Father Hai presided over Sunday night’s opening mass—an intimate bilingual celebration attended by about 100 people, including sophomores Laura Haven and Eddie Ventura. With the church bathed in white light and the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in front of the faithful, Haven said the altar streamers seemed to sway during the homily.

Ventura, himself, felt the spirit—having not only a cultural but a Catholic connection to Our Lady of Guadalupe. “We have a special devotion to her in the sense that she’s the one we go to for motherly help,” he said. As a transfer student from Arizona, Ventura said the blessed mother helped him with his transition to Saint Mary’s. “I asked her for peace.”

An educational component to the week’s events was Monday night’s showing of the documentary Clinica De Migrantes, which highlighted the working conditions and health care concerns of undocumented immigrants.

History Professor Myrna Santiago said the film and panel discussion (underwritten by the Disney Forum) offered an important lesson. “We’ve got to educate our students and ourselves,” she said. “What does it mean to live in poverty in the U.S. today? Who are the people who live in poverty...what are their conditions?”

To that end, “Our Lady of Guadalupe serves as a symbol of hope” Father Hai added, “specifically for immigrants who struggle to find quality healthcare.”