Our Lady of Guadalupe

Guadalupe

            December 12 is a very special day to Mexicans.  I vividly remember the night, in Walla Walla, Washington, when my Mexican adult English students, their friends and families gathered at our church, St. Francis of Assisi on a cold winter night.  Each person had a candle. Some had guitars.  We processed through the streets from St. Francis to St. Patrick. In Spanish, we sang songs of praise to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and songs of rejoicing.  It was a solemn and joyful experience of community and solidarity.  Once again, years later, as I experience this solemn event I am brought closer to my own heritage, and the stories my mother's family told of their life in Little Italy, Manhatten.

            Now I live in Mexico.  Her day has arrived.  Some weeks ago, when I made friends with CeCe the pharmacist/nurse in Canatlan, I gave her my phone number and asked her to let me know what the scheduled events would be on this special holiday.  She did not call me.  On the 11^th I happened to go to the tiny, dark grocery store in our little town of El Pozole, for eggs.  There the kindly storekeeper, she of the misshapen face, told me that on the 12^th there would be a Mass at 9 a.m. in our little church, and in the afternoon live music.

            I set my alarm to be sure to arrive at church on time.  It is hard to get up on these cold winter mornings, and I tend to put it off.  But not this day.  I arrived before 9 to find a lot of cars parked (five or six), the church doors wide open, the front yard festooned with flags and plastic flowers.  Inside, the altar was crowded with flower arrangements of red and white, and green foliage.

            Our little church could hold 100 people in the pews, but on the average Sunday there might be 20.  There are additional benches along the walls which I had never noticed before.  This day, the church would hold at least 150 people.

            The nine o’clock hour passed.  A familiar woman set the altar, bringing the cup, water and wine, lighting candles, and placing the prayer books that the Priest would read from during the Mass. The blind pianist had just finished leading a chorus standing around his little table, where his electronic keyboard rested, in the side aisle midway down the church.  This group drifted off, and I too went out to the courtyard to enjoy the warmth of the weak sun.  People were milling around, waiting for something. 

            Then I heard the sounds of police sirens in the distance.  They grew closer and closer. All who were inside now came out to the courtyard in anticipation.  A group of young men and women dressed in white track suits came from around the corner running through the narrow dirt street towards the church. They carried a banner, a couple held torches. Behind them was a white pickup truck, the source of the siren. Above the cab secured to the bed of the truck was a large picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Secured behind it and facing backwards was a 3-foot statue of the same honored Lady, adorned with plastic flowers at her feet.

            The fifty or so group of white clad sprinters rushed into the church and into pews on the right front.  They stood, and chanted something.  While they proceeded with their orchestrated rituals, I noticed their outfits.  Each had a large patch of the traditional image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the left chest.  Below the hoodies that fell at their necks, each person’s name was sewn in black felt letters.

            The church was now fuller than I had ever seen it, the way I would imagine it to be for Christmas or Easter.

            Finally the waiting was over, and the priest came out in vestments to begin the Mass.  I did not recognize him; the Diocese had sent us a spare priest from Durango.  Usually our Mass is led by a white haired deacon, who also runs one of the two tiny grocery stores in our little town.  In October, however, he left for Mexico City to seek medical treatment for his knees.  I also heard a rumor that his elderly mother was there, needing care.  Whatever the truth is, we have not had Mass at our little church since then.  The Diocese cannot spare us a priest on a regular basis.  I have been attending Mass in Canatlan, instead.  Today was a very special day, indeed.

            After Mass I joined the throng in the courtyard.  It was an overcast day; the sun shone through weakly, but still it is warmer outside than in the cold church.  I didn’t know what we were waiting for, but I quietly stood, waited and observed.

            Styrofoam cups began to appear.  I realized there is a small room off this courtyard, and the warm fruit drinks were emerging from there.  I sipped, I wandered, I observed.  The old ladies I usually see and talk to on Sundays were not there.  The group was multigenerational, with grandmas and infants in family groups, and teens milling on their own.

            As I sipped my second cup of hot brew and finally settled on a cold wall bench, a lady across the courtyard waved and grinned at me.  I recognized CeCe.  We met halfway, in a warm embrace.  She escorted me back to her little ledge corner, with her two sons, her boyfriend, daughter-in-law and toddler granddaughter.  They were dressed in the white track suits.  I wondered if this weren’t a sodality in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

            She started telling me of the events of the night before.  She said when she noticed I wasn’t there, it was too late to call me.  She said, why weren’t you there?  And I chided her:  You have my phone number, you were supposed to call me!

            They had had a procession, and then the large group went to Durango where there was more solemn and festive activities.  I promised myself that next year I would be there.

            By now it was going on eleven o’clock.  Ladies had been coming out of the kitchen with trays of the warm drink, making sure that everyone had their fill.  Then I saw a couple of pint cups filled with chopped onions and cilantro, and two more of halved limes, set out on a cement cube abutting the church wall, next to the kitchen door.  Soon plates started coming out, too.  CeCe got up and brought me one, before she served her family.  I added onions and a squeeze of lime, and soon warm tortillas were passed around as well. 

            This was menudo, with pozzole; a dish of which I am well familiar from many years past.  It is made of pig intestines and the big white hominy kernels (pozzole), in a red and spicy broth.  I had to laugh at the casual attitude of these delightful people, wearing white and eating a soupy dish out of flimsy plastic bowls.  I guess they have learned over time how to get the greasy red stains out.

            I remember my Mexican friends teasing me, in Walla Walla, about this dish.  It could be a dreaded experience, forced upon one by a kind hostess.  If the intestines were not cleaned out well, indeed it could be a foul-tasting dish. 

            The noon hour was quickly approaching, and I had not yet fed the pets.  I verified about the music…it would begin at 6 at the church and continue for three hours…and then I left.  The festivities must have continued well past noon, because from my Pozole home I could still hear the BOOM! Of the firecrackers that were set off a few times each hour. 

            I put the bee in CeCe’s bonnet about my needing to rent (she said ‘borrow’) a home in El Pozole or Canatlan.  I think she had a wide social network, if only she remembers my cause.

            The idea of carrying the holy statue through the streets reminds me of stories my mother and aunts would tell of their childhood in Little Italy, New York, and of their participation in these opulent processions.  No wonder I feel so close to this culture, so at home here in Mexico.