Like other communities across the nation, towns in the Lake Chapala area are winding up for one of Mexico’s most fervently celebrated religious holidays, the December 12 Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Festivities honoring the nation’s religious patroness that have been under way since December 4 will culminate next Tuesday as throngs of the faithful gravitate to church services, street processions and other special activities heightened with earsplitting fireworks, lively music and bustling street fairs.
Many families customarily manifest their devotion to La Guadalupana by setting up picturesque shrines at the doorsteps of their homes. Centered around a cherished household image of the dark-skinned Virgin, the holiday altar is commonly adorned with Mexican flags, paper banners or streamers in the national colors (red, white and green), plants and flowers (particularly roses), candles and strings of sparkling Christmas lights.
As a prelude to evening church services on December 12, inhabitants in each community congregate for colorful street processions that typically feature proud moms and dads toting toddlers outfitted in traditional native attire, indigenous dance troupes, marching musicians and charro horsemen with their prancing mounts forming color guards. Most parades will get under way between 5 and 6 p.m. The routes in each location may be tracked by listening for the blast of cohetes (sky rockets) fired off in repeated rounds to mark the pilgrims’ progress.
Neighborhood festivities in Ajijic’s Seis Esquinas area, Chapala’s Barrio de Guadalupe, San Juan Cosalá and other locales often run into the wee hours as throngs gather for lively street parties featuring food, drink, music and dazzling firework displays.
Similar celebrations are held throughout the Lake Chapala region, notably in the towns of La Barca and Sahuayo, as well as in Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta. Mexico City authorities expect more than seven million pilgrims to appear at the Basilica where the original image of Guadalupe is enshrined.
Although widely embraced as the holy Queen of Mexico and spiritual Patroness of the Americas, La Virgen de Guadalupe represents more than a just major religious figure. She is a beloved mother figure and icon of national identity that is etched in the hearts and minds of the vast majority of the population, transcending ethnic differences, socio-economic strata and territorial boundaries.
Images of La Morena are ensconced in nearly every Mexican household. Her familiar figure appears in Roman Catholic shrines all over the world, on murals that adorn the streets of inner-city Latino enclaves in the United States, on body tattoos and as a decorative detail for all sorts of consumer goods, ranging from religious medallions and dashboard guardians to posters, decals, coffee mugs, key chains and tee-shirts.