Saint Rita in Okolona celebrates Our Lady of Guadalupe's Day

Our former parish's special day...

Dressed in Aztec costumes, the young dancers leapt, bowed, kicked and turned in sharp angles, accompanied by a steady drumbeat and a mandolin. Their gold and maroon costumes were topped by headdresses adorned with peacock feathers, and their capes displayed images of the Virgin Mary.

They were marking the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a central event on the Hispanic Catholic calendar, along with hundreds of others at St. Rita Catholic Church in Louisville.

“That's our mother,” said Diana Gallegos, before accompanying the Danza Azteca group on drums.

“That's how to not forget our past,” added one of the dancers, Daniel Nova.

They, like most at the annual festival, are natives of Mexico, where the feast day is a major national celebration. The day included Masses in the early morning and in the afternoon, with breakfast and lunch served in the gymnasium, including such traditional Mexican fare as rice, beans and tamales.

But for many, the core of the celebration was in the worship services themselves. Long after the afternoon Mass ended, families continued to gather in the front of the sanctuary to take pictures of their children before a statue to Our Lady of Guadalupe, surrounded by votive candles, floral bouquets, colored lights and other adornments.

“We come together in faith more than anything,” said Aurelio Puga, a deacon at St. Rita. He said many people come to give thanks for help or to bring prayers for loved ones' needs.

Guadalupe “Lupe” Rebollo, who is named for the patroness, credits the Virgin with watching over her in her new life in the United States.

“I have work, I have my family, I'm healthy,” she said.

She said the holy day is important because Mary “appeared in Mexico for us. We have to celebrate her.”

The devotion to the Virgin Mary, common throughout Roman Catholicism, is particularly focused on Our Lady of Guadalupe for those from Mexico and some other Latin American lands.

The celebration marks the belief by Catholics that Mary appeared in 1531 to an Aztec peasant in Mexico named Juan Diego.

Many Mexican immigrants in the Louisville area have found a spiritual home at St. Rita, off Preston Highway in south Louisville, one of the first Roman Catholic parishes to offer a range of services to the region's growing Hispanic population.

And many others have found homes at other area Roman Catholic parishes in recent years. About a dozen parishes offer weekly Masses either in Spanish or with Spanish translation from English, according to the Archdiocese of Louisville.

Its Office of Multicultural Ministry estimates between 10,000 and 15,000 Hispanic Catholics are active in parishes in the 24 counties of the archdiocese, stretching down the middle of the state between the Ohio River and the Tennessee line.

The icy roads and snowy day kept crowds lower than usual, said one of the event's organizers, Alma Martinez.

But “the people that come, we can see their faith, even with the weather,” she said.