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Kelly Trejo, representing the Virgin of Guadalupe, and Juan Madriz, potraying St. Juan Diego, enter St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco Dec. 7 after the 26th annual pilgrimage to marked the Blessed Mother's miraculous appearances to Juan Diego in 1531. (Photo by Dennis Callahan/Catholic San Francisco)
Dec. 7, 2019
Lorena Rojas
San Francisco Católico
Juan Villalobos began to walk in the Guadalupana pilgrimage, dressed as St. Juan Diego, when his daughter María Guadalupe, was about to lose her baby in the womb.
"I asked the Virgin from my heart that if she gave life to the baby, the rest of my life was going to be this command," he told San Francisco Católico Dec. 7 during the 26th annual walk from All Souls Church in South San Francisco to St. Mary’s Cathedral to venerate the patron saint of Mexico and patroness of the Americas.
Villalobos promised the Virgin of Guadalupe that he would not only walk the 12 miles of the pilgrimage every year but also go to his knees from the door of the cathedral to the image of the saint in the Guadalupe chapel, bringing her flowers.
He has been doing so since his grandson Jerome "was born perfectly," he said.
This Michoacán, Mexico, father of three, learned the devotion to the Virgin from his grandparents, who often took him to pilgrimages in Guadalajara.
Kelly Celina Trejo represented Mary in the pilgrimage for the first time this year, alongside Juan Madriz, who has portrayed St. Juan Diego for 10 years.
“I didn't even know that my parents had pointed me out” as a candidate to represent Mary, “but I accepted it and I appreciate that they chose me,” she said, speaking with San Francisco Catolico while waiting in Holy Angels Church to portray the third appearance of the Virgin to the neophyte Juan Diego on Tepeyac Hill in what is now Mexico City.
Trejo encouraged young people to remain in the church.
“I want to tell young people to believe and not to leave the church, with everything there is today, many forget God, but you have to have it in your heart and believe in it,” she said.
The Guadalupe pilgrimage, the largest Latino Catholic event in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, was founded by Pedro and Marta García and is still directed by the couple. This year, as in previous years, they asked the Virgin of Guadalupe for intercession for immigration reform in the United States.
Arriving at the cathedral in a wet and windy storm, the pilgrims were welcomed to a Mass in honor of Our Lady by Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone and other members of the clergy.
“You have completed this pilgrimage. It is a long and exhausting walk, you have endured the cold, tiredness and even the rain, you all come wet, but we thank God for this rain,” the archbishop said in his homily. “The rain is a sign that the sky is crying ... but tears of joy, the sky is raining tears of joy for his manifestation of his great love and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.”