NEW ROCHELLE, NY — Blessed Sacrament-St. Gabriel High School celebrated the Mass of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Friday at Blessed Sacrament Church in New Rochelle. Students were dressed in costumes from around the world. Mariachis performed music for the mass.
“The costumes are representative of the different cultures found at the school,” said Principal Eddie Sullivan.
The story of the the Virgin Mary appearing to a Juan Diego, a peasant walking from his village to Mexico City on December 9, 1531, was portrayed by a student from the school. The story goes that Mary appeared to Juan Diego on the Hill of Tepeyac. When he told what he has seen, the Spanish Archbishop told him to return with a sign to prove it was the Virgin Mary. Juan Diego did as he was told. The Virgin Mary appeared to him again and told him to gather flowers from the hill. Juan Diego found roses growing on the top of the hill. He gathered them in his cloak and returned to the Archbishop. When he opened his cloak, the roses fell to the floor. On the fabric of the cloak, the the image of Mary, the Virgin of Guadalupe, was imprinted on the fabric. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a celebrated Roman Catholic icon of the Virgin Mary now displayed in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico.
The mass was organized by Ramonita Vazquez, a foreign language instructor at the school.
“We incorporated eleven languages into the mass,” said Vazquez. “Spanish, Garifuna, Nyanja, Portuguese, Twi, Tsalagi, Hungarian, German, Italian and, of course, English.”
Garifuna is spoken in Honduras and Belize, Nyanja is spoken in Zambia, Twi is spoken in Ghana and Tsalagi is the Cherokee indian language.