SOMERS POINT – Twenty-eight years ago, 14 year-old Edgar Mexquititla left his native Mexico and family for a better life in the United States. He didn’t have much, but he knew he had a powerful intercessor on his journey.
“When I first came to New Jersey, I asked Our Lady of Guadalupe to show me the way,” he said, referring to the Patroness of the Americas. “I believed she was going to help me succeed here.”
Today, with a wife, son, daughter and steady job, Mexquititla is thankful for the Virgin Mary’s protection and her promise given to a young Mexican peasant in 1521: “Am I not here, I who am your Mother?”
“Anytime I have troubles, I ask her to guide me, and she always brings me to Jesus,” said Mexquititla, a parishioner at Saint Joseph Parish, and one of many who gathered Dec. 12 for the annual celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe on her feast day.
PHOTO GALLERY: Our Lady of Guadalupe in Somers Point
The festive atmosphere at Saint Joseph was just one of many throughout the world, nation and in the Diocese of Camden in honor of the Blessed Mother. That same day, Bishop Dennis Sullivan celebrated with the community of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, Newfield.
Dressed in cultural garb and carrying icons and statues of the Blessed Mother, generations young and old gathered in Somers Point for the evening that began with a procession around the church, and cries to “La Guadalupana, Madrecita de los Mexicanos.”
“As Our Lady was the dawn opening the New World to the light of her Divine Son, so, too, does she continue to draw all people to her son so that all people may come to know the goodness of the Lord,” Father Carlo Santa Teresa, the Mass celebrant, said in his homily.
He recounted the Blessed Mother’s appearances to Juan Diego in the 16th century on Mexico’s Tepeyac Hill, pledging her love and protection “that would extend from generation to generation.”
She is not only “the mother for every Christian no matter where they may be in their spiritual lives,” but also for “the skeptic whom she is ready to bring the fullness of truth that is found in her son.”
at the bottom and then tap “Add to Home Screen”
