Fidelia Meza has a devotion to the Virgin Mary.
When the 31-year-old Catholic from Kankakee County got married, she brought roses to Mary. When celebrating the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Meza typically brings her more flowers — that is, she might lay flowers near a statue of Mary in a church and pray.
On Saturday morning, Meza made a physically larger gesture to the mother of Jesus. She rode a horse in an annual Archdiocese of Chicago pilgrimage to a Marian shrine in Des Plaines.
The reason for the added gesture was that Meza wanted to say a special prayer for her niece’s son, who was born recently with medical problems.
“Hopefully she can help the baby and my entire family because my family and I, we are very close together,” Meza said before the ride. “So anything that happens in our family, it jeopardizes everybody. So I’m hoping the Virgin Mary can do a miracle and get the baby out of these seizures and be healthy.”
By 7:30 a.m., about a dozen horse trailers had pulled into Dam No. 1 Woods, a Cook County forest preserve along the Des Plaines River and about five miles north of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Around 10 a.m. near a pavilion in the forest preserve, hundreds of riders and their horses crowded around an altar and Deacon Miguel Vargas to listen to a few scripture readings and some preaching in Spanish.
The horseback pilgrimage — which had 800 riders, according to the archdiocese — was the “unofficial start” of activities at the Des Plaines shrine for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which Catholics celebrate Dec. 12.
Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of Mary’s many titles. It’s connected with a set of Marian appearances to Mexican peasant Juan Diego that are believed to have occurred nearly 500 years ago, in December 1531.
Vargas, 60, of Hoffman Estates, said Catholics make pilgrimages for Our Lady of Guadalupe to show her they are grateful for the blessings in their lives, such as their jobs and families.
One reason to make a pilgrimage on horseback specifically is that horses are a reminder of the days when people needed them to harvest the land and to live, said Vargas, who is originally from Monterrey, Mexico. Consequently, horses are also a reminder of one’s principles, values and culture, he said.
“When they go on the pilgrimage, they’re going to be riding for maybe two or three hours,” Vargas said. “They’re going to be reflecting.”
Juan Pozo, 25, did not ride. Instead, the Carpentersville resident helped distribute hot drinks, Mexican pastries called conchas and tamales made by his mom to those gathered near the pavilion, the pilgrimage’s starting point.
Pozo said he’s been involved with the horseback pilgrimage, which is in its 13th year, since the beginning. If someone doesn’t have a specific petition to bring before Mary, feast celebrations are opportune times to be thankful for what has happened during the past year and to finish the year on a good note, he said.
After following the river south, when riders reach the journey’s end — the shrine on North River Road — they are given flowers to hand over to Mary, Pozo said. He added that whenever he visits the shrine, he feels a special internal calmness.
“I would have to say you don’t necessarily have to be part of a religion to feel being welcome there,” Pozo said. “It’s a really nice place.”
According to the archdiocese, hundreds of thousands of faithful are expected to attend feast day events at the shrine on Dec. 11 and 12.
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