Despite the cold, many in Nashua’s Catholic community gathered on Sunday morning to celebrate the Virgin of Guadalupe at St. Aloysius of Gonzaga parish. Families streamed out of Mass and flocked around steaming pots of Mexican tamales and atole as a band played traditional tamborazo music from the Zacatecas region of Mexico.
Santos Bonilla was one of the people carefully guarding her plate of tamales from the wind. She’s a parishioner and sings in the church choir. Bonilla said the Virgin Mary means a lot to her family, especially to her mother, who prayed for a miracle back when she lived in Santiago, Dominican Republic.
Bonilla lives in the U.S. now, and her mother has passed on, but she keeps a close relationship to the Virgin Mary. This year, Bonilla is praying for the Virgin Mary to take care of her daughters.
“May she take care of my daughters and free them from all the negative things in the world,” she said in Spanish.
The Our Lady of Guadalupe is also a celebrated figure in Mexican culture and a symbol of Mexico’s mestizo identity, a mix of Indigenous and European traditions. But she's celebrated and revered across Latin America, known as the patroness of the Americas.
For Bonilla, the idea of sharing a spiritual mother with others brings her a sense of peace.
“I’m not from Mexico, but she’s the same Virgin Mary, our mother, the one who gave up her son for us,” she said. “That means a lot –everything.”
After everyone had eaten their fill, many families took home several plates of leftovers at Rev. Marcos Gonzalez Torres urging – quipping that he didn't want to spend the rest of his life eating them.
Gonzalez Torres said that devotion to the Virgin Mary is a touchstone for his community, and celebrations like this one are an important part of bringing together the church and the neighborhood. This year, he’s praying for unity, asking for there to be tolerance and peace in the community and his parish.
“For us to feel safe, feel like family, to feel protected,” he said in Spanish. “And we also ask the Virgin to help the whole community –the whole country– to keep on prospering and hoping for the future.”
The feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe is on Dec. 12. Between now and then, St. Aloyisus of Gonzaga will host Masses and prayers in honor of the virgin, followed by cultural displays of music, food, and dance.
