For the first time without restrictions like before the pandemic, students and staff at Incarnate Word Academy celebrated the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Monday in the school gymnasium.
The celebration was joyous as the gym filled with students carrying red roses for the virgin and the drum beat began for matachines dressed in colorful traditional costume.
Mariachi Zacatecas then performed several numbers dedicated to the virgin, all of course in Spanish. After the mariachi departed, everyone sang “Las Mañanitas” to the virgin, which is Happy Birthday in Spanish.
Father Kevin Collins of St. Eugene de Mazenod Catholic Church in Brownsville led a special Mass for Our Lady of Guadalupe, but first he asked the matachines what they liked about their role in the service, one reserved for eighth graders.
One said that dancing as a matachin could be regarded as a form of prayer.
Collins then asked the students what they liked about the Virgin of Guadalupe.
In the interchange that followed, Collins and the students agreed that the virgin had accepted what God sent her.
“What was the miracle?” Collins asked.
“She told the bishop to build her a church,” and she was so determined that the bishop did build the church, which stands today in the center of Mexico City as the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Before celebrating Mass, Collins noted that the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a special day for the people of Mexico and all of Latin America.
He then invited the students to a special performance of Handel’s Messiah at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the TSC Arts Center.
The concert is free, and Collins said the students could ask their teachers for extra credit for going. He is singing in the choir.
“It’s based on scripture and Jesus’ coming,” he said.
Of the Virgin of Guadalupe, he said. “We praise her; we dance for her for not forgetting us.”
