So, what was this creppy catholic doing while in Mexico?? Obviously, she was doing creppy catholic thingies…like going on a pilgrimage to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe! You can’t get more Mexican catholic than that!

Jam asked me about that experience since it is so catholic and weird, so here we go!

Pilgrimages are one of those funky things of Catholic culture. Basically a pilgrimage is a  a trip to a Holy place. It is supposed to be a journey of prayer, penance and encounter with Christ. They go back to our Jewish roots. Pilgrimages were undertaken by Jewish people for many reasons—to recall the Exodus, to maintain contact with the temple. (remember how Jesus, Mary and Joseph went to the Temple every year?) and catholis do them to remember that we are “aliens and sojourners” in this world: "Beloved, I urge you as aliens and sojourners to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against the soul" (1 Pt 2:11, see also Heb 11:13-16).

A Pilgrimage is a metaphor of life. We travel, we suffer in our trip, (if you go to a pilgrimage in first class flight and to a 4 star hotel you ain’t a pilgrim baby! You are a religious tourist!), we do acts of charity, we pray and finally we arrive to the Holy Place, in my case, the Basilica! In my trip I traveled for around 12 hours, did penance (believe me, Mexico City’s subway at noon is penance), prayed for everyone and their dogs and finally arrived at the Basilica where I praised God, asked forgiveness for my bunches and bunches of sins and finally went to Mass and encountered Christ in Holy Communion…talk about a spiritual boost!

Anywho, now you are all like…Our Lady of Guada—what??

C’mon, if you’ve been around Mexicans at all you’ve probably seen the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe…  in the next post…Our Lady of Guadalupe and why Mexican catholics are crazy about her!