Immigrants keep their promises as Guadalupe Torch arrives in Archdiocese of Baltimore

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WOODLAWN – As a team of runners carried a flaming torch through the streets leading to St. Gabriel Church in Woodlawn Nov. 24, more than 300 Hispanic Catholics from throughout the Archdiocese of Baltimore received them with tossed flower petals, traditional dances, Marian songs and shouts of “¡Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!”

The “Guadalupe Torch,” accompanied by images of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego, had already traveled more than 2,500 miles from Mexico City, where the flame was lit at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe Sept. 5. It was to stay burning in the Baltimore archdiocese until Nov. 26, when a local team of runners was to resume carrying the flame into the Diocese of Wilmington, Del. Its final destination is New York, where it is expected to arrive Dec. 2. 

The 19th Guadalupe Torch Run (Carrera de la Antorcha Guadalupana), is an annual pilgrimage that runs through five Mexican states and 14 American states over three months. Various runners from each location carry the torch during stretches through their dioceses. A team from the Washington archdiocese carried the torch into Baltimore.

“The arrival of the Guadalupe Torch to Baltimore is a symbol of hope for the immigrant community,” said Lia Salinas, the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s director of Hispanic Ministry. “The devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe transcends borders and is an example of unity between people and cultures.”  

Pedro Peralta, a parishioner of St. Clement I in Lansdowne, will be among those local runners who will carry the torch during its journey to Wilmington. His devotion to the event started back in his hometown of San Antonio, a small town near Puebla, Mexico, where he and his family first started participating in the run in 2008.

Peralta said he promised Our Lady Guadalupe to visit her on her feast day at her home in the Hill of Tepeyac, where the basilica in Mexico City was built, for three consecutive years, but before he could make the third year, he found himself in a new country.

“I feel that in a different way I am keeping my promise here by serving as a bridge, so others can get to know her too,” said the organizer and “captain” of the Guadalupe torch in the Archdiocese of Baltimore for four consecutive years.

Peralta and his wife, Cecilia, started running together during the Guadalupe Torch Race as a religious devotion.

“We could not have kids, so we asked her for a blessing for our lives,” Pedro Peralta said. “Our Lady of Guadalupe granted us a girl, who now dances with my wife in the Aztec dancing on her feast day every year, and later a boy.”

When her son’s health was critical, Micaela Lucero, a parishioner of St. John the Evangelist in Columbia, prayed to Our Lady of Guadalupe for his healing and promised her a “manda,” a thanksgiving in recognition of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s intercession.

“I can’t say I am Mexican if I am not ‘Guadalupana’ (a word to describe devotees of Our Lady of Gudalupe),” Lucero said.

Her son was completely healed a year after she prayed for healing. Now as part of her son’s “manda,” he visits Our Lady in the Mexican basilica dressed in St. Juan Diego’s attire — approaching the front of the altar on his knees on her feast day Dec. 12.

Lucía Romero, who has traveled guarding the Guadalupe Torch for 11 years from Mexico City to New York, said she started helping with the run because of her son, a Mexican immigrant in Maryland. Her son was upset at being unable to visit the tilma image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, but was hopeful to find comfort in the visit of the torch. Romero’s son died before he could see the torch in Maryland.

“The first year I did it for my son, the following years I did it for the immigrants who cannot go to Mexico City to visit her,” Romero said. “Our Lady of Guadalupe and running is what has kept me going.”

The Woodlawn celebration of the reception of the Guadalupe Torch included a bilingual Mass, Aztec and folklore dances, Mariachi singing and traditional Latino foods. Mass was celebrated by St. Gabriel’s pastor, Monsignor Thomas L. Philips, and concelebrated by associate pastor Father Roger Brito Fernández. Deacon Vito S. Piazza assisted.

Father Brito said that for many of the immigrants present, their mothers live in another country but, “On this Thanksgiving weekend, mom protects us under her mantle and comes to tell us ‘I need to visit your hearts, my children do not worry I am with you.’” 

He continued, “Just like Our Lady of Guadalupe told St. Juan Diego, ‘Do not be afraid, am I not here who am your mother?’”  

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Email Priscila González de Doran at pdoran@CatholicReview.org

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