Growing up in Mexico, every year around this time everyone looks forward to major festivities. The Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated on December 12. It’s a huge celebration throughout the whole country which commemorates the appearances of the Virgin Mary to an Aztec man in the 16th century. The story is that Mary appeared to Juan Diego and sent him on a mission to have a shrine built in her honor. He hardly felt capable of achieving this task since he was an indigenous man and spoke Nahuatl, not the Spanish of the Bishop. At first the …
Christmas preparations
It has been three months since I arrived at Holy Wisdom Monastery. I am becoming an expert window cleaner. And I am enjoying singing, some days I surprise myself humming a hymn. I am thinking about my Christmas preparation time back in Mexico, and I remember that I used to have a communal preparation. We, the whole neighborhood, start the Our Lady of Guadalupe Novena on December fourth. The neighbors take turns hosting evening communal rosary at their houses. After that everybody enjoys drinking coffee, tea or atole (a sweet, hot drink) with cookies or sweet bread. During these nine days …