Week 5: My experience with La Virgen de Guadalupe

 La Virgen de Guadalupe has been a constant presence in my life. I feel as though she is always with me, guiding me through the highs and lows of life. For context, I come from a somewhat religious household. Growing up, my Catholic mother enrolled me in Catechism school for the weekends. I vividly remember crying and praying to La Virgen to help me pass the oral test of reciting prayers as I walked to the school – I always failed. My mother always took my sisters and I to a new church location every Sunday morning up until I was 15 years old.  This is around the time in which I began to disassociate from religion and wasn’t sure if I believed in all of its practices and teachings. However, I still would accompany my mother to church because I knew it would make her glad to see me on what she deemed was the “right path” for una dama. A little after that, I began to explore my sexual identity and once I began questioning that part of myself, it did not take long before I began to wonder how a church (or God, either works fine in this case) that preaches love to all of its followers, would not extend its arms to me and my queer identity. I tried speaking to a priest about it during confession, but he did not do much besides tell me to pray (aka “pray the gay away”, which we all know doesn’t work). I kept this part of me a secret from my mother. I found solace with La Virgen because her face has been painted, carved and depicted as an understanding and motherly figure and would dedicate a prayer to her every day. When I did break the news to my mother, her face appeared to have the same understanding and loving face that I had prayed to for so long (she alter admitted that she had already had suspicions and would accept whether I told her or not). To this day, I am unsure if I can call myself Catholic but there is no doubt that my love for La Virgen stems from the love I have for my mother.

P.S. check out @virgensdela on Instagram, they post pictures (as well as locations) of La Virgen Maria from all over LA in all different art forms and styles! The images I've posted here are all from that account.