Chicagoland

Horseback pilgrimage celebrates heritage, faith of its pilgrims

By Michelle Martin | Staff writer
Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Horseback pilgrimage celebrates heritage, faith of its pilgrims

Over 900 horses carrying members of various cowboy clubs from the Chicago area and five states make their way to place a rose at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines on Dec. 7, 2024, as part of a pre-celebration for the feast day on Dec 12. The riders began their pilgrimage to the shrine at the Forest Preserve, Dam No. 1 Woods in Northbrook where they took part in a brief morning service before leaving on a ride to the shrine. The feast celebrates the appearance of Mary to indigenous peasant St. Juan Diego in 1531 near present-day Mexico City. (Denise Duriga and Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)
A rider and his horse make their way from the parking lot to the site of the service in the forest preserve. Over 900 horses carrying members of various cowboy clubs from the Chicago area and five states make their way to place a rose at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines on Dec. 7, 2024, as part of a pre-celebration for the feast day on Dec 12. The riders began their pilgrimage to the shrine at the Forest Preserve, Dam No. 1 Woods in Northbrook where they took part in a brief morning service before leaving on a ride to the shrine. The feast celebrates the appearance of Mary to indigenous peasant St. Juan Diego in 1531 near present-day Mexico City. (Denise Duriga/Chicago Catholic)
Deacon Miguel Vargas from the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe leads the service. (Denise Duriga/Chicago Catholic)
Riders bow their heads in prayer during the service. (Denise Duriga/Chicago Catholic)
Jesus Uribe hands a medal to a rider that commemorates the pilgrimage. (Denise Duriga/Chicago Catholic)
A close-up of the medal given to pilgrims. (Denise Duriga/Chicago Catholic)
Father Esequiel Sanchez, left, rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines, leads the riders on the pilgrimage. (Denise Duriga/Chicago Catholic)
Riders make their way down the trail. (Denise Duriga/Chicago Catholic)
Riders pass by the icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe at the shrine in Des Plaines. They present a rose to Mary at the shrine and receive a blessing from clergy. (Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)
A rider brings roses to the shrine. (Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)
Deacon Leonardo Victor, Deacon Ramon Velázquez and Father José Sequeira bless the horses and their riders as they approach the icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe. (Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)
Young women hold flags while sitting on their horses in the shrine's plaza. (Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)
A boy presents his rose to Our Lady. (Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)
Friends and family watch the riders arrive in the plaza. (Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)
Riders give their roses to a volunteer who will put it by the icon. (Karen Callaway/Chicago Catholic)

More than 900 people on horseback gathered in the Cook County Forest Preserve along the Des Plaines River south of Dundee Road on Dec. 7 to make their way along the forest preserve bridal path to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines, a journey of more than 5 miles.

They came to celebrate their Mexican heritage and to ask the intercession of and give thanks to Our Lady of Guadalupe. The annual horseback pilgrimage, organized by Club Los Vaqueros Unidos (United Cowboys Club) of Wadsworth, is one of several pilgrimages leading up to the Dec. 12 feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Father Esequiel Sanchez, rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, led the procession, along with riders bearing the U.S. and Mexican flags, a banner with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the banner of the shrine itself.

For many of the participants, getting to the beginning of the “cabalgata,” or mounted procession, was a pilgrimage in itself.

The horses and riders came from Illinois communities such as Wadsworth, in northern Lake County, and Joliet and Manhattan in Will County. They came from Appleton and Green Bay, Wisconsin, and from communities in Indiana, and from as far away as the states of Washington and New York.

They came, Deacon Miguel Vargas said, to honor and remember their heritage and culture, while paying tribute to la Virgen de Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico and entrusted by St. John Paul II with the care of all the Americas.

Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to San Juan Diego, an indigenous peasant, and his uncle, Juan Bernardino, several times between Dec. 9 and Dec. 12, 1531. Appearing in the form of a pregnant woman who spoke Juan Diego’s indigenous language on Tepeyac hill, just outside what is now Mexico City, she asked Juan Diego to tell the archbishop that he should build a shrine to her on the hill.

The archbishop at first rebuffed Juan Diego, then demanded a miracle. Juan Diego was delayed in delivering that message because his uncle became ill and nearly died. The Virgen de Guadalupe healed Juan Bernardino, and directed Juan Diego to gather the roses that she made bloom in December on the hill and carry them to the archbishop in his “tilma,” or cloak.

When he let the roses spill out of his tilma in the presence of the archbishop, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was left behind on the cloak, which is still displayed in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico.

An official replica of the image is displayed at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines, where more than 200,000 pilgrims have come to venerate during Dec. 11 and 12 feast day devotions. Leading up to those annual festivities, the shrine has welcomed pilgrimages of truck drivers and horseback riders.

This year, Deacon Vargas led the liturgy of the word at the forest preserve.

In the remote areas of Mexico, Vargas said in Spanish in his homily, horses were indispensable, a foundational part of their history. Horses were necessary for work, for transportation, for something as simple as getting a message to someone more than a few miles away.

The riders who come to participate in the cabalgata give thanks for that heritage, and for their horses, as well as for their health and for their families.

For Yesica Barrios, the cabalgata is a family event.

She stood holding her brother-in-law’s horse, Medalla, by the reins, waiting for him to return, watching a parade of pickup trucks and SUVs pull horse trailers along the forest preserve access road, looking for a place to unload.

“Some of us had to get up at 6,” she said. “Or 5, to get everything ready and get here on time. They come to give thanks to the Virgin Mary.”

Each year, the procession is scheduled to start with a Liturgy of the Word service and a blessing of the horses at around 9 a.m.

Barrios’ 18-year-old daughter would be riding with her two brothers-in-law, she explained, as she had for the last three or four years. Her brothers-in-law have been coming for at least 10 years, she said.

The cabalgata started with about 80 horses in 2011. By 2017, Chicago Catholic reported, there were more than 100 horses and riders; and in 2023, the number topped 800, according to Vargas.

Vargas asked the riders who were gathered around the altar set up in a picnic shelter which states they had traveled from, and recognized the work and sacrifice that had gone into getting ready for the pilgrimage.

Jose Galvas doesn’t ride in the cabalgata, but his father does. He joined his mother and sister in offering free hot chocolate and “champurrado” and “concha” pastries to those who came to the starting point of the ride.

For his mother, he said, it was a way of fulfilling her “mandas,” or promises made to the la Virgen de Guadalupe.

Vargas urged the riders to take to the trail with a feeling of prayer — prayer for loved ones who are sick, or who are far away. But he also asked them to reflect on what kind of people they are called to be.

And he asked them to remember the grace with which the Virgin Mary is filled, the grace of God, and to give thanks for that grace.

Sanchez said he would pray for those who are sick, for families navigating problems and for families who are separated. He said he would also pray for more vocations to the priesthood, for men of valor and men of faith to respond to God’s call.

For Patricia Calzada Abella, who came from Appleton, Wisconsin, with a family group of 14 people and eight horses, the annual pilgrimage is a chance to have the horses blessed, according to her daughter, Brenda Abella, who rode one of the horses in the cabalgada.

“She wants to visit la Virgen de Guadalupe,” Brenda Abella said, mounted on her horse waiting for the prayer service to start.

Nearby, a family from Green Bay waited on their mounts. The youngest, Anthony Rivas, 12, sat astride Olaf, a white donkey.

Other children rode in the cabalgata, either on their own mounts or seated behind their parents for the ride through the woods and alongside the Des Plaines River, culminating in offering roses to Our Lady of Guadalupe at el cerrito, the outdoor grotto made to look like the hill of Tepeyac.

Topics:

  • shrine of our lady of guadalupe

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