Catholics pack church

Hundreds filled St. Joachim Roman Catholic church in Costa Mesa on Friday night to celebrate one of the most important holidays of the year for Mexican Catholics: the storied apparition of the Virgin Mary (La Virgen de Guadalupe) centuries ago on a mountain in Mexico to give hope to the recently vanquished indigenous people.

Every inch of space in the church was filled as people standing in the aisles squished together, and the crowd overflowed out of every door.

Many wore street clothes, but some women and girls were dressed in white gowns embroidered with red and green designs. A few men and boys donned white suits with red bandannas around their necks.

Before the Mass, a procession walked slowly around the church, praying in Spanish along with a woman speaking into a small amplifier. They followed a statue of the Virgin Mary carried above their heads by several men. The statue shows the Virgin, hands joined in prayer and head downturned, wearing a red robe and a green cloak and surrounded by roses.

The tradition has been extremely important for Mexican Catholics for generations, and it’s still very much alive in the local Latino community among older generations.

“We do this celebration from that time ago to teach our kids what we believe,” said Sergio Arroyo, a volunteer at the church.

He stood next to his daughter, Jessica, who needed her father’s help to explain the significance of the day.

As the Latino population in Costa Mesa and the surrounding areas grows, Sergio has seen a big increase in the number of people who attend the Spanish-speaking Masses at the church. It was especially evident on Friday, as no fewer than 50 people stood outside the church doors trying to catch a glimpse of the service going on inside because there’s no room for them to stand.

Teenagers Paola and Jonathan Silva walked around the building with their baby brother during the Mass, having arrived too late to fit in the doors.

Their parents, who they say are more religious than they are, arrived earlier and got a place inside.

“I come pretty much because it’s a tradition of my family,” Paola said.

Asked what the significance of the ceremony is, Paola said she didn’t know. Her brother jogged her memory though and together they told the story.

The way the brother and sister tell it, Saint Juan Diego was up on a mountain outside of Mexico City when the Virgin Mary appeared to him.

He ran back to town to tell the village people, but they didn’t believe him so he returned to the Virgin. Since it was winter, the Virgin gave him roses that grow only in the summertime to prove her existence. When Diego returned, the Virgin’s image was emblazoned on his tunic.

A church sits on that mountain today.

The program, written in Spanish, talks about the fact that the image on the cloth is still around today after 500 years and even surviving a bomb explosion in the shrine where it was kept in 1921.

A group of mariachis wearing short white jackets, slim black pants and red ties accompanied the singing of the congregation with rhythmic guitar strumming and the distinctively sour melodies of trombones and trumpets. It was the second mass of the day for some. At 4:30 that morning there was another one, similarly well attended.

“It’s just a tradition,” Sergio said.

After the night’s Mass, the congregation joined in bread and hot chocolate.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at [email protected].