Guadalupe festival celebrates, sustains mission
Devotees pray in front of a figure of the Virgin of Guadalupe during a Dec. 10 festival celebrating one of several apparitions of the Virgin Mary witnessed by an indigenous Mexican man named Juan Diego in 1531.
(AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
NARANJA, Fla. (AP) — Martin Monjaraz takes special pride in helping to organize the Guadalupe festival on the grounds of St. Ann Mission, where he first embraced the Catholic faith as a teen after moving from Mexico to work in the surrounding farmland decades ago.
"Here there's a way to welcome that it's always like we've known one another forever," Monjaraz said by the large tent where hundreds of people had been streaming in since well before dawn Sunday to bring roses, poinsettias, candles and prayers to a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The feast draws millions of pilgrims to the main basilica in Mexico City and to churches big and small across the Americas around Dec. 12, which marks the anniversary of one of several apparitions of the Virgin Mary witnessed by an Indigenous Mexican man named Juan Diego in 1531.
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