Los Angeles, Calif., Dec 7, 2011 / 23:55 pm
Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez celebrated a procession and Mass for nearly 25,000 devotees of Our Lady of Guadalupe Dec. 4, urging them to follow the Virgin Mary's example by grounding their lives in God.
“We need to promise that we will always nourish our roots – through our prayers and devotions, through all our efforts to lead a good life and to help others and make our neighborhoods and communities strong, through our love for our family and our love for our Church,” Archbishop Gomez said in his homily at East Los Angeles College Stadium.
He told the crowd, which had traveled in procession along Cesar Chavez Avenue to the stadium, that the miraculous image of the Virgin was part of God's plan for North America and the world.
“God has a plan of love for the world, and God has a plan of love for each one of our lives,” he said. “That is why Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary 2,000 years ago. And that is why he sent his mother to the Hill of Tepeyac in December 1531.”