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Actors portraying Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego are filmed in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco for a video reenactment to be shown during a virtual edition of the annual Guadalupana march to be held Dec. 5 in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. (Photo by Zac Wittmer/San Francisco Católico)
Nov. 11, 2020
Lorena Rojas
San Francisco Católico
The Crusada Guadalupana in the Archdiocese of San Francisco will be held virtually on Dec. 5, an act of faith and hope in the virgin of Guadalupe, for survivors of COVID-19 and for an end to the pandemic, said the founders of the annual veneration, Pedro García and his wife Marta García.
"The Virgin cannot be without her party," Marta García said.
“For us it is very important not to miss this date to venerate Our Lady of Guadalupe and ask God for everything that is happening with the pandemic,” she said. “So, this idea came to us to do the crusade virtually even though it is a challenge for us because of the technology.”
The Guadalupana Crusade was an inspiration of Pedro García, who first organized the pilgrimage in 1993 to ask Mary’s intercession for immigrants and their legal status in the United States.
Since then, each year on the Saturday before the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is Dec. 12. 2020, the pilgrims walk 12 miles from All Souls Church in South San Francisco to St. Mary´s Cathedral in San Francisco.
Pedro García thinks that the pilgrimage "is a very strong vehicle, among all of us, to ask the virgin of Guadalupe to intercede for us and for the whole world because the situation is very serious."
"In difficult moments the first one we turn toward is her -- through her intercession our request goes to God,” he said. “This year we pray for a remedy for this great evil that is in the world.”
Marta García said: “This is a new experience. If it weren't for the great help we have had, Pedro and I would not have known what to do.”
One of the volunteers who stands out in the production of the virtual crusade is Raul Chavez, a technology specialist. For Chavez, to produce the Cruzada Guadalupana virtually is more than an act of gratitude to the García couple, whom he loves as if they were his aunt and uncle.
He believes in the miraculous appearances of Our Lady of Guadalupe to the neophyte Juan Diego outside what is now Mexico City in December 1531 and notes the faith of the many devotees who come to the pilgrimage each year.
"When I go to the pilgrimage, I see and feel that energy," Chavez said.
Regardless of the effort that implies the production of this virtual edition of the Guadalupana, Chavez's greatest satisfaction is the opportunity to develop the project with his family.
This year’s pilgrimage will be held Dec. 5 with the same program as previous years but with participation through Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
The day begins at 8 a.m. with a video welcome message recorded in All Souls Church from pastor Father Kazimierz Abrahamczyk and a blessing by retired Auxiliary Bishop William J. Justice, who opened the doors to the first crusade when he was the pastor at All Souls.
Other videos from Holy Cross on Mission Road will feature archdiocesan cemeteries director Monica Williams and archdiocesan vicar for administration Jesuit Father John Piderit, praying a mystery of the rosary.
The virtual event will include a video reenactment of the first apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe, with Geisy Tórrez as Our Lady of Guadalupe and Juan Madriz as St. Juan Diego. Other videos about later apparitions will be presented from St. John the Evangelist Church and the cathedral.
The crusade will end with a livestreamed Mass at 2 p.m. at the cathedral, celebrated by Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone.
Participants in the virtual pilgrimage will include a COVID-19 survivor, Mario Ayer, a longtime volunteer at the annual event.
Ayer, 53, knew he had COVID-19 when he went to Seton Hospital in Daly City on Aug. 21. Before leaving his home he stopped in front of a painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the living room of his house and he told her, "I am in your hands, mother. You will know if you bring me back home again."
In the hospital, his health worsened.
"Only a nurse, who went to Mass and prayed the rosary for me, had faith that I was going to live," Ayer said. “I was so sick that I even saw my father-in-law who died three years ago, but I abandoned myself to the virgin of Guadalupe.”
This year, although there will be no pilgrimage in the streets, Ayer will walk from All Souls Church in South San Francisco to the cathedral as a sacrifice to Our Lady of Guadalupe.