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Home  / News & Publications /  Michigan Catholic News / 2009 /  Our Lady of Guadalupe

by Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published December 18, 2009

Gregg McIntosh | The Michigan Catholic The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe sits under the baldacchino over the altar of Holy Redeemer Church in southwest Detroit last Saturday during Mañanitas, the Morning Serenade service that traditionally begins the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Gregg McIntosh | The Michigan Catholic Every aisle was packed with standees during last Saturday's Mañanitas at Holy Redeemer Church in southwest Detroit.

Gregg McIntosh | The Michigan Catholic A member of the dance ensemble Grupo de Danza Azteca takes part in last Saturday's Mañanitas at Holy Redeemer Church.

Gregg McIntosh | The Michigan Catholic Two people pray last Saturday before an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on a side altar at Holy Redeemer Church. It was at this side altar that Guadalupana devotions began decades ago at the southwest Detroit church.

DETROIT – Of the perhaps 2,200 people who took part in Mañanitas last Saturday at Holy Redeemer Parish in southwest Detroit, Alicia Fuertes takes the prize for the earliest to arrive.

Fuertes was there at 3:45 a.m. to start setting up for the breakfast that many of those who came for Mañanitas — or Morning Serenade – would go to after the service, which traditionally begins the day for Mexican and Mexican-American Catholics every Dec. 12, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

"It's a nice tradition; it strengthens your spirit," says Fuertes, who moved to Detroit from Houston, Texas and joined Holy Redeemer nine years ago.

It is a tradition she says she hasn't missed since her parents first took her to one in San Juan Capistrano, Texas about 45 years ago.

But if Fuertes was the first, there were many others who arrived well before the 5 a.m. start of the service, which began with opening prayers by Auxiliary Bishop Daniel Flores and Msgr. Donald Hanchon, Holy Redeemer's pastor.

By about 5:15 a.m., every pew was filled in the church, which comfortably seats 1,500.

By 5:30 a.m., every aisle was packed with standees, and the most new arrivals could hope for was to stand in the narthex or a side vestibule, and peer over others' heads into the church.

But the music could be heard by all, as 11 different singers or musical groups took turns offering their serenades.

In tempo, the songs ranged from ballads to more lively numbers, but all were full of praise for and devotion to the Blessed Mother. "One ballad tells the story of the apparitions (to St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, a young Mexican Indian, in 1531), and says Juan Diego saw this beautiful lady whose face and features were Mexican – 'yes, she looks like one of us.'" Msgr. Hanchon translated. "And the lyrics continue, 'Ever since that time, for a Mexican to be a Guadalupano is essential,'" he continued, explaining that the word means one who seeks Our Lady of Guadalupe's intercession.

In another song, "Santa Maria del Camino," the lyrics say "You are never alone, because Mary works with you on the road," he translated.

Msgr. Hanchon recalled how 20 years ago there was only one Mañanitas in the entire archdiocese, with it rotating among those parishes with substantial Hispanic memberships. Now, however, each of the largely Hispanic parishes holds it own early morning service, though not always as early as Holy Redeemer's.

Msgr. Hanchon added that he finds it gratifying that many pastors of non-Hispanic congregations have begun to share the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe with their parishioners.

Holy Redeemer member Jose Ramirez, though originally from Guanajuato, Mexico, only experienced his first Mañanitas several years ago at Holy Redeemer, because his family were migrant farm-workers and never near a large Hispanic community on Dec. 12 when he was growing up.

Gregg McIntosh | The Michigan Catholic Bishop Daniel Flores and Msgr. Donald Hanchon pray during last Saturday's Mañanitas, as members of Banda Embajador play behind them.

Gregg McIntosh | The Michigan Catholic Banda Brisas del Encinal serenades Our Lady of Guadalupe last Saturday in a packed Holy Redeemer Church.

"This is a tradition throughout Mexico, and is one that is most sacred to all the people of Mexico, and we have now made it a tradition with my family, too," Ramirez said.

He was among a portion of those who had been at the Morning Serenade who stayed for the 8:30 a.m. Mass, along with his wife, Jennifer, sons Emilio, 11, and Alejandro, 1, and daughter Carmen, 10. Carmen did one of the readings at the Mass.

For Bishop Flores, last Saturday was his fourth and last Holy Redeemer Mañanitas as a Detroit auxiliary bishop. He leaves in January to become bishop of the Diocese of Brownsville in Texas, where he will be installed in a Feb. 2 ceremony.

Although his last major event before leaving the archdiocese will be Christmas Eve Midnight Mass at St. Stephen/Mary, Mother of the Church Parish in southwest Detroit, "This is always the biggest event of the year" he noted about the Mañanitas at Holy Redeemer. Bishop Flores said the huge turnout was illustrative of Hispanic Catholics' "deep-felt devotion to the Blessed Mother on this, her day."

Gregg McIntosh | The Michigan Catholic Archbishop Allen Vigneron and Bishop Daniel Flores chat prior to the 8:30 a.m. Mass last Saturday, at which the archbishop presided.

He pointed out that the custom of singing a morning serenade to friends or family members on their birthday or saint's day is a widespread custom among Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. "I've had people call me up as early as 5 o'clock in the morning on my birthday, and begin singing mañanitas to me," he said.

Archbishop Allen Vigneron, who was principal celebrant for the 8:30 a.m. Mass at Holy Redeemer last Saturday, commented, "The outpouring of people's devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe is a great testimony to their faith."

Discussing the origins of the feast, the archbishop continued, "The apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego began a great evangelization, and out of that evangelization a new people came to be, blending the Europeans and the native people. They've persisted for all this time as children of God and children of the Blessed Virgin."

Gregg McIntosh | The Michigan Catholic Bishop Daniel Flores blesses 1-year-old Arturo Gonsales, in the arms of his mother, Udelia de la Cruz after Mañanitas last Saturday at Holy Redeemer Parish.

And he added that the presence of so many Hispanic Catholics in the Archdiocese of Detroit "is a great gift and blessing to our community."