|
Honoring Our Mother
Faithful flock to downtown Marian celebration
By Andrew Junker, The Catholic Sun
December 20, 2007
The streets of downtown Phoenix are usually sleepy on Sunday mornings. But on Dec. 9, they bustled with celebration.
Hundreds braved the unusually chilly and wet weather to celebrate Our Lady of Guadalupe with a procession, Mass, eucharistic adoration and live music at the second annual Honor Your Mother event.
Men, women and children dressed in colorful costumes and lined up at 9 a.m. outside of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish on Ninth Street and Washington Avenue.
Following floats decorated to re-create the moment Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego, the faithful shouted “¡Viva la Virgen!” and prayed the rosary.
The procession moved west on Washington and then north toward St. Mary’s Basilica where Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted waited to greet and bless everyone.
“It was an opportunity for us to experience our larger faith,” said Fr. Steve Kunkel, pastor of Christ the King Parish in Mesa. A number of groups organize the yearly event, but Bishop Olmsted also requested that two parishes help take charge this year: Christ the King and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
“The bishop wanted to incorporate more people into it,” Fr. Kunkel said. “By getting a parish involved, there is some kind of ownership, so every year it can get bigger and bigger and more multi-cultural.”
While La Virgen de Guadalupe occupies a special place in many Hispanic hearts, organizers and speakers throughout the day reminded attendees that Our Lady is also patroness of the Americas and the Diocese of Phoenix.
Anglo parishioners from Christ the King helped show the day’s unifying theme by bringing up gifts to the altar, making and holding banners that directed communicants to the Eucharist and helping plan the celebration’s musical acts.
In addition, Bishop Olmsted celebrated a bilingual Mass, with the readings, prayers and music flowing seamlessly from Spanish to English.
True devotion
Incarnate Word Father Humberto Villa, pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary, gave the bilingual homily and encouraged the nearly 500 people in attendance to foster a true devotion to Mary.
“Devotion fills us with confidence in the Blessed Mother, the confidence that a child has for its loving mother,” he said. “That is a true devotion, when we look at her not as a simple lady, but as a mother.”
Fr. Villa also warned about a false devotion to Mary, based solely on ethnic ties rather than filial love.
“How many times have we said, ‘Oh, Father, I am so devoted to our Mother,’ and then we don’t follow the Ten Commandments or do the things that are holy,” like attending Mass each week, he said.
True devotion to Mary will always lead to Christ, Fr. Villa added.
“In this celebration, we are preparing ourselves for the event of Jesus being born as our Savior,” he said. “A true devotion to Our Lady is something interior, not just something we say with our words. It starts inside of us.”
Rey Ruiz of Mary’s Ministries agreed. He helped organize the event and said that Mary is an instrument used by God to bring people closer to her Son.
“God uses anything and everything He can to let you know that He loves you,” Ruiz said. “If you can go to somebody who has a tender heart, who is a mother and believes that everyone is her child, the only thing that she’s going to do is love you and then take you straight to her Son, Who is God.”
Overcoming difficulties
Throughout the Mass — which was celebrated at the intersection of Fourth and Monroe streets — the bishop and lectors had to contend with noise from a nearby construction site.
Both Fr. Kunkel and Bishop Olmsted viewed the sometimes-cacophonous setting as a teachable moment.
“The bishop recognized that there was a lot of construction noise going on across the street: banging and welding and sawing,” Fr. Kunkel said. “But he saw it as a reminder to us that we can’t hide our faith under a basket. Our faith needs to be public.”
Likewise, when the speakers amplifying the Mass occasionally faltered, Catholics should have been reminded that “there are many struggles we deal with that we are called to overcome with our faith, and not let them keep us from being witnesses,” Fr. Kunkel said.
After the Mass, musical groups began playing in tents around the basilica grounds. A group of actors performed the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Juan Diego on one of the stages, and many families took time to eat at the picnic tables that were set up.
The celebration reminded those who attended that the Church is larger than just one person or priest or parish, Fr. Kunkel said.
“We share our faith with so many people all around the city. It’s not just our parish or our church,” he said. “It’s a way of publicly professing our faith that the Catholic Church is present in Phoenix.”
|
