A joyous procession of prayerful hymns and enthusiastic chanting rang through the tiny residential streets of Avalon on Santa Catalina Island as the sun was about to go behind the central ridge on a late Friday afternoon. It was made up of a mix of some 100 visitors from the mainland and their newfound friends who followed behind framed images of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego secured to the back of utility trucks.
“There’s something wonderful about this place — it’s different living here, very laid back,” said Auxiliary Bishop Marc V. Trudeau, who oversees the San Pedro Pastoral Region that includes Avalon. “So when you can get a parade of people with a couple floats and all the colors, people here can’t help but want to know what’s going on.”
The day began just after sunrise with Bishop Trudeau’s blessing of the images as they were loaded onto a small boat, Lotus, in Long Beach, serenaded by a mariachi band and young dancers. The boat needed five hours to cross the 26-mile waterway and deliver the pair of 8-by-4 images. Meanwhile, some 60 pilgrims from nine parishes in the archdiocese made the trip to Avalon in one hour on the Catalina Express.
A 2-mile loop starting and ending on the front steps of St. Catherine of Alexandria Church — past City Hall, up Avalon Canyon Road to the historic Bird Park aviary before circling back — gave way to a cavalcade escorted by local Knights of Columbus and cheered on by young children in colorful costumes.
The trek was just one portion of the dawn-to-dark day of pilgrimage on Oct. 22, marking the first of the images’ several stops around the archdiocese leading up to the 90th annual procession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, coinciding this year with the San Gabriel Jubilee Year marking 250 years of Catholicism in Los Angeles.
As he reflected on the day’s events before the boat trip back home, Bishop Trudeau hoped those taking the trip could realize the pilgrimage was far from finished.
“We’re in such a hurry to get places these days that we don’t always appreciate the process of getting there,” he said. “A pilgrimage is about the process. You don’t stop the pilgrimage when you arrive at the destination. Getting to Catalina wasn’t the pilgrimage. It’s getting back home and continuing that even when you are tired. Looking back on history, it’s wonderful for us to do these small pilgrimages, which are models or snapshots of the larger pilgrimage, which is our lives.”
Full story at Angelus News.
Below is the itinerary for the remaining days left of the 2021 pilgrimage:
Tuesday, October 26 – Wednesday, October 27
St. Gregory the Great Church, 13935 Telegraph Rd., Whittier
Tuesday, October 26
8:30 a.m. English welcome Mass (opening procession by St. Gregory the Great School students)
9 a.m. English morning rosary group
10 a.m. Spanish prayer workshops
11 a.m. English and Tagalog Filipino ministry
12 p.m. Spanish lectors
1 p.m. English bible study
2 p.m. Matachines dancers
3 p.m. English Alliance of Two Hearts
4 p.m. Spanish Divine Mercy/Sacred Heart
5 p.m. Religious Education/RCIA/First Communion
6 p.m. Knights of Columbus
7 p.m. Bilingual Mass with music and Aztec dancers.
Wednesday, October 27
8:30 a.m. Mass
9 a.m. English morning rosary group
10 a.m. St. Gregory the Great School students
11 a.m. English and Tagalog Filipino ministry
12 p.m. Spanish Marriage Encounter
1 p.m. Spanish Divine Will meditation
2 p.m. Spanish Eucharistic ministers and sacristies
3 p.m. English Alliance of Two Hearts
4 p.m. Spanish prayer group
5 p.m. English Confirmation and youth ministry
6 p.m. Spanish Guadalupe ministry
7 p.m. Farewell bilingual Mass and procession with Mariachi and Aztec dancers
Thursday, October 28 – Friday, October 29
St. Mary of the Assumption Church, 7215 Newlin Ave., Whittier
Thursday, October 28
5:30 p.m. Spanish Mass with mariachi
7 p.m. First rosary of 46 days of rosaries leading up to Our Lady Guadalupe’s Dec. 12 feast day
Friday, October 29
8 a.m. English rosary
8:30 a.m. English Mass
12 p.m. English rosary
3 p.m. Holy hour
5:30 p.m. Spanish Mass
6 p.m. Spanish rosary with adoration
Saturday, October 30 – Sunday, October 31
Mission Santa Inez, 1760 Mission Dr., Solvang
Saturday, October 30
6 p.m. Welcome procession at the back of the Mission with Aztec dancers and music
7 p.m. Spanish Mass
8 p.m. Rosary with choir and dancers
Sunday, October 31
8 a.m. English Mass
9:30 a.m. English Mass
11 a.m. Spanish Mass
12:30 p.m. Spanish Mass
6 p.m. Rosary with choir and dancers
7 p.m. Aztec dancers outside of the Mission
Aztec dancers again enough already with that, Our Lady appeared to St. Juan Diego to convert the people of Mexico from paganism and blood sacrifice to Roman Catholicism. Aztec dancers are fine in a secular way but not in a Roman Catholic setting period.
That interesting because I have read that the new groups want to remove all the Catholicism and Christianity from the dances and just have it as a secular thing. These groups are the Catholic ones.
Apparently it was controversial since the time of their conversion but it is part of how they worship and it was permitted by the ecclesiastical authorities.
And it was approved centuries before Vatican II.
If I never see another Aztec dancer at a Catholic event it will be too soon.
If it weren’t for dancing at Mass, would these Aztec dancing groups have anything to do? I don’t see them dancing at civic events. What’s the deal?
Aztec dancers used to perform at some fairs in California or at other secular historical and cultural events. In those cases they often appeared in loin cloths and without shirts — the men that is.
“Rosary with choir and dancers….”
So, you dance while praying the rosary?
I’ve prayed ALOT of rosaries in public and before and after Mass and there wasnt any dancing. Deo gratis.
Leetle too mucho inculturation, quemo sabe.
I hold no brief on the Aztec dancers because I do not know what message the dancers are trying to communicate, if any. Is it not just a celebration of their heritage without any religious connotation at all? If it has religious connotation, would it be to an Aztec god or gods? Can someone chime in?
Let me put it this way: would you approve of ballroom dancing during Mass? Swing? Breakdancing? Hip-hop? Waltzes? Tango? Irish jigs? If not, then why do Aztec dancers get a pass? It has nothing to do with Catholic faith, just as none of those other styles of dancing have anything to do with Catholic faith, and they don’t belong at liturgy. Stop with the diversity virtue signaling.
It was not at Mass.
I agree with you that such dancing should never be down inside a church sanctuary nor at a mass, but to be fair, I think the dancing in the above article was all done outside the church and the dancers were fairly well covered — not in loin clothes as happened in the past in one Californian cathedral.
As I posted before, and it was taken down, there are other videos on other websites, that I will not mention, that look as though some dancing was done in the Church sanctuary. If so, I would quietly leave such a function as it would give credence to other cultures doing the same.
Dancing has always been done in church halls, such as at weddings, but even that has to be kept in check, so people do not over indulge — and I am talking about ALL of us of every culture. Then we will have no regrets, nor sins for which to atone.
It is to Our Lady of Guadelupe. It is a centuries old practice in Mexico. Hard to find great info online in English,
Neither Jesus nor God were mentioned once in that video. It’s a paganized distortion of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Sorry, but it’s pagan. Clearly. The dancing is pagan. They are trying to hide it or excuse it or cover up what it really is and claim it’s for the Virgen. It’s just pagan and foreign to Catholicism.
And I’ve never heard anyone say that the image of Guadalupe is dancing. Never. That’s completely made up.
Do not paganize the church.
That sort of distortion of Mary is akin to the distortions of Medjugorje. They just do whatever they want and think appealing to Mary justifies it. Sorry. Nope.