What to expect at Our Lady of Guadalupe celebration in Des Plaines
Crowds estimated in the hundreds of thousands will visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines beginning Monday evening for annual feast day celebrations.
Organizers of the religious pilgrimage in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe - second in size in North America only to the Basilica in Mexico City - asked visitors to bundle up as temperatures could dip to 19 degrees with a slight chance of snow Monday night.
Additionally, gatherers will celebrate Masses in a big-top tent this year, not the gymnasium where services have usually been held. The gymnasium is closed while it's being converted into the shrine's first chapel.
Rev. Esequiel Sanchez, the rector of the shrine, said worshippers are expected to offer prayers and satisfy their mandas, or promises made to the Virgin Mary, and bring a wide range of concerns, including health care, immigration issues, family members and other issues.
Pilgrims are known to walk from Chicago to visit the outdoor shrine on the campus of Maryville Academy, 1170 N. River Road in Des Plaines. The shrine is the only place in the world outside the Basilica in Mexico City where believers can satisfy their mandas, according to the church. A 12-foot replica statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe that came from Mexico City sits in the shrine.
Sanchez said the gathering of worshippers is an opportunity to set aside division in order to bring healing.
"It's a different dimension of human expression," Sanchez said. "It's a human expression of what's most important to your heart."
Sanchez encouraged visitors use remote parking lots and take free shuttles to the shrine that run from 5 p.m. Monday to 5 a.m. Tuesday. The four remote parking lots are at Palwaukee Plaza, 644 Milwaukee Ave. in Prospect Heights; Oakton Community College Lot D, 1600 E. Golf Road in Des Plaines; St. Emily, 1400 E. Central Road in Mount Prospect; and St. Chong Ha Sang Korean Catholic Mission, 675 Dursey Lane in Des Plaines.
On Monday, Masses will be at 6 p.m., 8 p.m., 10 p.m. and midnight. The "Las Mananitas" torch-lighting ceremony will be in the grotto at 10 p.m. Torches carried by hundreds of people representing Hispanic parishes in the Chicago will be blessed for the annual Guadalupe Torch Run.
On Tuesday, Masses will be at 2 a.m., 3 a.m. (youth Mass), 5 a.m., 9 a.m., 12 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m., and 7 p.m.
Organizers want visitors to use remote parking lots
Before the event starts, more than 100 riders from Club Los Vaqueros Unidos (United Cowboys Club) and their horses will participate Sunday in the Archdiocese of Chicago's annual horseback pilgrimage.
Marking the unofficial start of two days of festivities, it begins at the Forest Preserve Dam No. 1 Woods (East) in Northbrook and ends when the cavalcade arrives at the shrine for a blessing of the riders and horses about 2 p.m.