{"id":5952,"date":"2022-01-05T11:27:51","date_gmt":"2022-01-05T16:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/?p=5952"},"modified":"2022-01-05T11:29:36","modified_gmt":"2022-01-05T16:29:36","slug":"the-great-feast-of-our-lady-of-guadalupe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/es\/the-great-feast-of-our-lady-of-guadalupe\/","title":{"rendered":"La Gran Fiesta de Nuestra Se\u00f1ora de Guadalupe"},"content":{"rendered":"How can I begin to express my gratitude to the many people who have made this year\u2019s week-long celebration possible? What words would I use to express how wonderfully our community has come together to celebrate Our Mother and to express the faith that I continue to witness in God and in one another? <!- wp:more --><!--more--> I am so grateful to you and humbled by your sacrifice, your generosity, your kindness for our community, and for your  love for Our Lady of Guadalupe.  \r\nIn a very special way, I want to express the gratitude of the entire community to Mrs. Apolinar Diaz for  organizing this week-long celebration together with a great team. It has taken months of preparation and work  to bring this event to fruition. I know that her work for our community always comes from a deep commitment  to our community. I am deeply grateful and proud of everything she has done to bring our community together  for this great celebration. \r\nWe at St. Julia are so blessed with so many wonderful people, with such faith and devotion, and with such  genuine commitment to one another. We are truly a very beautiful family of faith where a large family within  families takes care of each other and celebrate the great gift of our beautiful diversity and giftedness. It is my  hope that everyone feels at home here at St. Julia and that we may forever create a welcoming and caring  family of believers. As the pregnant Lady of Guadalupe brought forth the Light of the World, may we, after her  example, bring Jesus to one another and to our entire community. May the people of St. Julia be a  beacon of life, holiness, and happiness for everyone. \r\nMore than 40 days ago, we began our spiritual preparation with the three images of the Virgin of Guadalupe  being hosted by families of our parish and other parishes. All those rosaries and prayers shared in the heart  of families\u2019 homes will bear fruit in their lives and in the life of our parish family. Our Mother will surely bless  \r\nus. I also want to express my deepest gratitude to Don Nico and his band who accompanied so many families  with his music and brought great inspiration to those homes and families. Don Nico is a man that I greatly  admire as a person and also as someone who cares deeply for our community. A special thanks goes out  \r\nalso to Graciela Banos and Rafael Epifanio who donated the use of the tents that have made a great  difference in our celebration and has made it possible to really enjoy everything during the week.  I am particularly happy and proud of how our English-speaking sisters and brothers participated in this year\u2019s  celebration. Thank you for planning Tuesday night\u2019s program for our youth and for welcoming the image of  Our Lady of Guadalupe into your homes and families. A special thanks goes to Richard Szary who worked  closely with Apolinar and who is the president of our Pastoral Council. \r\nMy heartfelt gratitude also goes to all of you who contributed so generously for the Mariachis, those who also  contributed so that we could cover the expenses of our celebration. I cannot forget the workers who  constructed the platform for the image of the Virgin carried in procession and those who helped to decorate  the church and to see many details. We cannot forget to thank everyone who brought their horses for the  procession and for the dedication of Luis Villanueva Ramos who organized it and brought the band to  accompany the procession. And, finally, I think, are all those people who have helped with the purchase and  the preparation of food. Friday night and Saturday were days dedicated to family and community and it would  not have been possible to celebrate it without the help and dedication of so many of you. As our parish continues to grow, I am sure that our celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe will also become  even greater. Many wonderful things have happened during this entire time: People have returned to the  faith, families have been strengthened, people have been inspired to participate more in the parish and their  faith in God and in one another has been deepened. We have celebrated the presence and the gift that our  little children and our youth are to our parish family. We have celebrated and strengthened the love between  husband and wife and have celebrated the great gift of family and community. May God walk with us as we  continue to do our part in creating a true family here at St. Julia. \r\nI am sure that Our Lady of Guadalupe smiles upon us because of our love for her and our dedication to one  another and our parish family. May she bring us closer to God and to the person of her Son, Jesus, whom  she carried in her body and shared with the world. \r\nI am so happy to be part of this parish family. All of you fill my heart with humble pride and joy and because of  all of you, I consider myself a very blessed man. If I have forgotten to mention anyone by name who should  be mentioned, I deeply apologize, but know that I am most grateful to you.  \r\nSo many have made this great week happen and it has happened in such a wonderful way.  We are truly blessed. May we always share of blessings.  \r\nYou are in my prayers and in my heart. \r\n!Viva Jes\u00fas y Viva La Virgen de Guadalupe! -Friar Julio\r\n<!-- \/wp:post-content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How can I begin to express my gratitude to the many people who have made this year\u2019s week-long celebration possible? What words would I use to express how wonderfully our community has&#8230;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-heart"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5952"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5955,"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5952\/revisions\/5955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}