Pilgrimages, Festivals and Churches
At the end of January and beginning of February each year a great pilgrimage occurs to the shrine and the city grows many times in size. This festival is attended by more than a million people, many of them walking, from all over Mexico. During a week of festivities there are hundreds of temporary stalls selling pilgrimage icons, multiple bands of musicians playing around the great basilica, fireworks demonstrations in the evenings, and a palpable feeling of spiritual joy descend on the town. If a family member falls ill or undergoes a serious surgery for example, you can promise the Virgin to make the pilgrimage if that person makes it out okay.
The devotion carried over to California by people from Jalisco. In the 1970s, George Martinez revived the devotion in San Francisco, California and a monthly mass was celebrated. In 1979 Martinez convinced the bishop of San Juan to allow the statue to come to California, and the statue left Mexico for the first time ever in 1980.
The devotion also arrived in New Mexico and the church of Nuestra Senora de los Lagos was built in 1828 in Talpa, New Mixico.
Read more about this topic: Our Lady Of San Juan De Los Lagos
Famous quotes containing the words festivals and/or churches:
“This is certainly not the place for a discourse about what festivals are for. Discussions on this theme were plentiful during that phase of preparation and on the whole were fruitless. My experience is that discussion is fruitless. What sets forth and demonstrates is the sight of events in action, is living through these events and understanding them.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“By 1879, seven churches of various denominations were holding services, which led the local Chronicle to comment, “All have but one religion and one God in common; it is the Crucified Carbonate.””
—Administration in the State of Colo, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)