Students in Catholic schools throughout the Archdiocese of Chicago will celebrate the annual Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe with special ceremonies and observances memorializing the miracles associated with the appearance of the Virgin Mary near Mexico City in the 16th century (see backgrounder below).
Here are some selected events:

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11

Santa Maria Addolorata, 1337 W. Ohio St., Chicago – 6 p.m.
On December 11 at 6 p.m. a small dinner with parents and students will take place. Following the dinner the 4th graders in costume will re-enact the Virgin Mary’s appearance to Juan Diego. The 5th and 6th graders will dance and the 3rd and 4th graders will sing and dance the Spanish Christmas Carol during the pageant. “This is a way for students to show honor to the Lady of Guadalupe and to share in the celebration with family.” said Principal Bonnie Veth.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12

Cristo Rey High School, 1852 W. 22nd Pl., Chicago – 7 a.m.
A 7:00 a.m. mass in the school gym will feature seniors in costumes re-enacting the Virgin Guadalupe appearing to Juan Diego. A breakfast reception with refreshments and food donated by families will immediately follow. Five hundred students and families will participate.

St. Mary of the Angels, 1810 N. Hermitage Ave., Chicago – 7:15 a.m.
A 7:15 a.m. mass will be attended by students. Students and their parents have donated flowers for the altar.

St. Ann School, 2211 W. 18th Pl., Chicago – 7:45 a.m.
A 7:45 a.m. mass will be attended by students in grades K-8. The 8th grade classes will reenact the appearance of the Virgin Mary to Juan Diego during mass. The students playing the roles of Mary and Juan Diego will be in costume, other participating students will wear black.

Our Lady of Lourdes School, 4641 N. Ashland, Chicago – 8:15 a.m.
An all-school mass at 8:15 a.m. will be held in the church (4640 N. Ashland, entrance on Leland) and the third and fourth grade classes will participate in a reenactment of the Virgin Mary appearing to Juan Diego during the liturgy.
Our Lady of the Mount, 2400 S. 61st Ave., Cicero – 8:15 a.m.
The entire school will be participating in a mass at 8:15 a.m. Las mananitas will begin parish-wide at 5:00 a.m. leading to the 8:15 a.m. mass. Visuals include roses placed at the five-foot-tall statue of the Virgin Guadalupe and Juan Diego.

Our Lady of Tepeyac, 2235 S. Albany, Chicago – 10 a.m.
A 10:00 a.m. mass will take place at the church with a choir singing. Our Lady of Tepeyac has a very special connection to the Our Lady of Guadalupe event because Tepeyac is the name of the hill in Mexico where the Virgin Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego.

St. Hyacinth, 3640 W. Wolfram St., Chicago – 12:30 p.m.
For the past week, students have displayed artwork in the halls to commemorate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The primary grade students will perform a brief reenactment and the choir will sing prior to a 12:30 p.m. prayer service. Students will donate wrapped gifts to be delivered to the Outreach Franciscan Association located on Ashland and Lemoyne in Chicago.

ABOUT THE FEAST OF OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
The annual Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated on the Catholic calendar December 12. The Feast memorializes the miracle in 1531 of the appearance of the Virgin Mary at Tepeyac, a hill northwest of Mexico City, before Juan Diego, an impoverished Mexican-Indian farm worker. Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared before Diego to prompt the historic conversion of millions of Native Mexicans to Christianity, which had been an unpopular belief in Mexico in the early 16th century, despite the presence of missionaries.
Catholics celebrate the appearance of Mary, in the form of an Aztec princess who spoke in Diego’s own Aztec language. She instructed him to ask the local bishop to build a church on a hill where Aztecs had formerly performed pagan rituals. When the bishop did not believe Diego’s account of the vision and ordered him to return to the apparition to ask her for a sign, Mary again appeared to Diego and instructed him to wrap rose petals in his burlap cloak and return to the bishop. When Diego unfurled the cloak, he revealed to the bishop an image of Mary on the garment, as she had appeared at Tepeyac. Another miracle associated with the apparitions was the recovery of Diego’s dying uncle who is believed to have been cured by Mary. Within a short time of these miracles, some six million Native Mexicans converted to Christianity.

Archdiocese of Chicago Catholic Schools
The Catholic schools of the Archdiocese of Chicago play a critical role in the life of the community by providing academic excellence and faith formation for approximately 117,000 students of many races, faiths and backgrounds in the 283 elementary and secondary schools in Cook and Lake counties. There are more than 6,400 teachers in the Catholic school system who instill values, teach discipline and achieve strong, consistent academic results in the Archdiocese of Chicago's 242 elementary and 41 secondary schools. Visit the Archdiocese of Chicago Web site at www.archchicago.org/schools