DES PLAINES, Ill. - Thousands of area Roman Catholics are making a pilgrimage to Des Plaines this weekend.continue at WGN
They're celebrating the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Huge crowds gather every year on the Maryville Academy campus for this two-day event. With the unseasonably warm temperatures, police are expecting 200,000 people by tonight.
The celebration marks the appearance of the Virgin Mary to Juan Diego in 1531 in Mexico. He later reached Roman Catholic sainthood.
That is astonishing to think of that number. Under no conditions are European Catholics capable of that number. Sure, it's moved into more of a cultural/national holy day, but as Pope Benedict VX proclaimed: “To no other nation has such a wonder been done.” There's not even another national celebration that rivals this day. I mean come on; it sure beats degenerate celebrations like Bastille Day.
1 comment:
"Under no conditions are European Catholics capable of that number."
My first thought would be the World Youth Days in Madrid, Spain and Cologne, Germany. Yes thousands of youth from around the world but the majority at both events were Europeans.
My second thought would be, this is comparing apples and oranges.
Catholicism in the US is mostly transplanted (first from Ireland, then central Europe, then Southern and Eastern Europe, now Latin America) from other places. In Europe a lot of the celebrations are much more local. The Feast of San Gennaro can be a great event in Naples and yet a very minor day in Genoa. Likewise many parishes have a local celebration on the feast of their patron saint.
Likewise on an important holy day, such as the Feast of the Assumption, people in Italy, or Poland, or wherever are going to their local parishes in their own villages, towns, and neighborhoods rather than gathering at one massive nation-wide event to celebrate.
The Des Plaines event is a great thing, as such it is not in need of a feather in the cap in the form of implying that Catholics in other countries are failing in some way because they aren't holding a similar event.
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