Concepcion Perez, 76, has long been a dedicated volunteer who helps during Mass celebrations and other gatherings related to the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  

Perez has done so for 55 years – first when the Guadalupe shrine was located on West 14th Street near 9th Avenue in Manhattan, and later when it merged in 2003 with St. Bernard on West 14th Street near 7th Avenue, becoming the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Bernard. She will once again help the parish this year with its Guadalupe gatherings at the shrine in preparation for the annual Guadalupe Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, set for 10 a.m., Thursday, December 12, the feast day.   

As she’s done over the years, Perez, along with other fundraising volunteers, will primarily serve as a vendor of religious items (Bibles, rosaries, and prayer cards) in the parish hall the afternoon and evening of the December 11 Las Mañanitas overnight prayer service and into the following morning and afternoon.  

“When I was a little girl in Mexico, my family instilled in me the devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and into my adolescent years,” Perez, born and raised in Mexico, told The Good Newsroom. “We are devoted to her Son, Jesus Christ, and to her, the Virgin Mary. This has always been very important to us. It is more than a tradition – it is a rebirth each year, a rebirth in the faith… It is the Catholic faith that sustains us; we are not perfect, but we try to live as God wants us to live – with Christ at the center of the home and the family.”  

Perez retired in 2014, having worked in childcare at a Manhattan fitness center. She and her husband Gilberto have one daughter and one granddaughter. Her husband, who is Puerto Rican-born, New York-raised, serves as a Eucharistic Minister at the shrine.

Antonio Gomez, another parishioner at the Guadalupe shrine, has served as a Guadalupe novena volunteer there for four years, where he serves as an organist and choir singer. Before retiring four years ago, he was on staff at the shrine as choir director and office assistant for 21 years. 

“All this is out of love for the Virgin Mary – to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe,” Gomez, 74, a married father of five, told The Good Newsroom. “We will have Mass celebrations and Rosary prayer services, including Las Mañanitas on the eve of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and overnight until the morning of the feast day.” Gomez and his wife Maria Teresa, both born in Mexico, also have eight grandchildren and one great-grandson. 

In addition to the Our Lady of Guadalupe Mass at the cathedral, there will be an array of other Guadalupe gatherings in the Archdiocese of New York: 

• Sunday, December 3 to Wednesday, December 11 – The shrine will hold a novena with daily Masses and Rosary services leading up to the Guadalupe feast day.
• Monday, December 9 – Additional prayer gatherings will be at the shrine in honor of the Feast Day of St. Juan Diego.
• Wednesday, December 11 – St. Patrick’s Cathedral will host an evening concert.
• Thursday, December 12 – A traditional, large street procession from the shrine will travel from West 14th Street to St. Patrick’s Cathedral before the Mass. In recent years, the route usually goes eastbound on 14th Street, northbound on Madison Avenue, and then westbound on 51st Street to Fifth Avenue. (It will depend on what the NYPD determines is the best route that morning). The procession typically consists of members of the shrine and other archdiocesan parishes, many of whom have participated in the Las Mañanitas overnight prayer service at the shrine.   

Father Jesús Ledezma, pastor of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Bernard, said the parish is highly thankful for the volunteer work of many parishioners during the Guadalupe gatherings, and in preparation for the events. “We could not do this every year without them,” the pastor said, noting the parish faithful’s immense dedication to Mother Mary under her title of Our Lady of Guadalupe.