Pilgrims flock to Mexico City basilica to celebrate the Virgin of Guadalupe

MEXICO CITY — Edivaldo Hernández Villar was crawling on his knees towards the Basilica of Guadalupe, grimacing and praying in a whisper.

It was the final part of an arduous four-day pilgrimage to Mexico’s most revered shrine, where Catholics believe the Virgin Mary miraculously appeared nearly 500 years ago.

Hernández, his wife and their teenage son had trekked the 100 miles from their rural village to the nation’s capital, walking all day with heavy backpacks and sleeping under the stars at night. Like the estimated 10 million other Mexicans who will travel to the basilica this month, their journey was an act of faith, contrition and gratitude.

“You endure the cold, you endure hunger, you overcome mountains,” said Hernández, a 34-year-old farmer. “That’s all for he.”

There is no figure more central to Mexico’s religious, cultural and national identity than the Virgin of Guadalupe.

His calm gaze is everywhere; It adorns t-shirts, trucks and the walls of most homes. People name their children after her and have her likeness tattooed on their skin: a queenly woman surrounded by sunbeams, her head bowed in prayer.

Ada Carrillo, one of the devout who filled the basilica this week, said it unites all of Mexico by transcending political, geographical and class divisions. Even President Claudia Sheinbaum, who is Jewish, wore clothing emblazoned with Guadalupe’s image.

A few days before the virgin’s feast day on Friday, Carrillo looked out at the vast plaza outside the great church, where indigenous dancers from the southern states mingled with cowboys from the north and cosmopolitan types from Mexico City. Rival bands played booming, brass-heavy songs. Young people and stray dogs dozed in the sun. A priest prayed endlessly, throwing holy water from a pink plastic bucket.

“There is no color here, there is no class,” Carrillo said. “Just faith.”

In the winter of 1531, a few years after the Spanish conquest, the virgin was said to have miraculously appeared at the foot of Tepeyac Hill, where the Aztecs worshiped the goddess Tonantzin. A local man named Juan Diego said he spoke to him in his native Nahuatl and asked him to build a church in his honor.

A skeptical Catholic bishop at first dismissed Juan Diego’s story. It is said that Juan Diego, later known as a saint, had the virgin’s own image printed on his cloak to help him prove his story. This was on December 12, a date celebrated by Mexicans ever since.

Millions of people now come to the basilica where the cloak is displayed every December, most of them coming in the days leading up to December 12th. At midnight on that day, devotees sing Las Mañanitas, the traditional birthday song for the virgin, and set off fireworks.

Pilgrims come from all over Mexico on foot, motorcycle, bicycle, bus and even wheelchair. Many people, like Hernández, kneel across the stones of the large square towards the doors of the basilica.

Mexico City’s working-class La Villa neighborhood, where the basilica is located, fills with trucks decked out with wreaths and Christmas lights and flocks of pilgrims camping in the streets.

People come with roses to ask for help in health, heart and business matters. They came to pray for their deceased relatives.

Others come to express their gratitude to the Virgin Mary for the miracles they believe in.

Carrillo, 46, was told years ago by doctors that she was infertile. He had traveled to the basilica from his home in the state of Tabasco to beg Guadalupe to spare at least one of his children.

This week, Carrillo walked the steps of the basilica with her daughter Ximena, a busy high school student celebrating her 15th birthday.

Tears flowed as Carrillo lit a candle for Guadalupe. She pulled her daughter close and muttered a little prayer. “Thank you for the blessing,” he said.

Believers gathered for a procession to the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City on Thursday, a day before the feast day.

(Alfredo Estrella/AFP via Getty Images)

The basilica is one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in the world, and this afternoon tour groups from Vietnam, China and the USA arrived here. Inside the cavernous church, priests celebrated Mass on the hour and an electronic walkway prevented visitors from lingering in front of Juan Diego’s famous cape.

Religious scholars say the Guadalupe tradition, which combined indigenous beliefs with Christian beliefs, helped solidify Catholicism’s dominance in Mexico. This also helped prevent the encroachment of Evangelical Christianity seen in many other parts of Latin America; few here are willing to renounce their allegiance to “Virgencita,” as Guadalupe is commonly known.

It is noteworthy that the maiden of Mexico had brown skin; This is a detail that does not go unnoticed by Indigenous people today or centuries ago. Today some Mexicans call her Guadalupe Tonantzin.

Theresa Sanchez, 66, a retiree who came from Mexico City with the help of a cane, said she sees Guadalupe as a link to Mexico’s indigenous past and visiting the basilica as a way to “thank Mother Earth for everything she has given us.”

He sees the cult of Guadalupe as both an effort by the Spanish to encourage the adoption of Catholicism in the New World and an opportunity to preserve traditions for indigenous Mexicans who “could not openly practice their faith.”

Many pilgrims came to the basilica with devotional artifacts, mostly statues of Guadalupe taken from local churches. Bringing the sacred items home safely was an important part of the journey. Many pilgrims take turns running hundreds of miles to their respective pueblos, carrying a burning torch along the foothills of Tepayac.

Brothers Antonio and Jesús Zamora from Michoacán state were preparing to run 260 miles to their hometown. Antonio, 70, was recently announced to be free of prostate cancer, and he said he would thank Guadalupe for his speedy recovery every step of the way.

He and his younger brother lived in Missouri for decades and worked there until they retired from the hotel business. All this time, he said, he returned to Mexico every December to visit the temple.

He asked Guadalupe to be healthy, raise a strong family, and end the cartel violence plaguing his hometown.

“I pray for peace,” he said. “For Michoacán. For Mexico. For the United States. For the world.”

He said he was also thinking of all the immigrants in America who were unable to visit the basilica this year because they did not have documents allowing them to travel between Mexico and the United States.

He said the immigrant community has been battered like never before in recent months. He also asked Guadalupe for help in this matter.

“I prayed for my people,” Zamora said. “I prayed for Donald Trump, too.”