.- Around 5,000 runners are participating in the 10th annual relay from Mexico to New York in honor of the upcoming feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The massive run shows the widespread “love and respect for Our Lady of Guadalupe,” organizer Mirian Dominguez told CNA. “When we run, there's so much love, so much emotion.”
Dominguez explained that the tag-team journey begins each year in October and passes through cities in Mexico and the southern and eastern United States.
The 10th annual run, organized by Dominguez's parish of St. Paul's in Wilmington, Del., kicked off in Mexico City and will end at New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 12.
Each segment of runners carries a torch for Our Lady of Guadalupe, which Dominguez calls a symbol of hope for Catholics around the world.
The torch and pilgrims will arrive at Wilmington's St. Paul Parish on Dec. 6 and be greeted by Mass, a meal and fellowship. Runners will stay overnight at parishioners' homes.
The frigid weather conditions that sometimes plague the runners this time of year don't phase the participants in the least, Dominguez said. They keep going “because of their faith, their love,” she noted.
