The annual Puerto Rican Cultural Day Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral is scheduled for Sunday, June 2 at 4 p.m., one week before the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in Manhattan. 

Later in the month, the annual Our Lady of Rocio Mass is set for Sunday, June 23 at 4 p.m. Our Lady of Rocio is a Marian devotion in Ecuador.     

Marian and other special Spanish Mass celebrations at St. Patrick’s Cathedral are sponsored by the Office of Hispanic Ministry of the Archdiocese of New York.             

“Both Masses remind us of the intimacy that the Hispanic culture has with the Blessed Mother. In Puerto Rico, they can always depend on Our Lady of Providence; they always have great confidence in her,” Father Brian McWeeney, archdiocesan director of Ethnic Apostolate, told The Good Newsroom. “It is the Puerto Rican parade Mass, but the Blessed Mother is never too far away from her beloved children.”       

“The same with our brothers and sisters in Ecuador; they feel when other things are not in their favor, Mary is always at their side,” Father McWeeney added.

Puerto Rican Cultural Day Mass 

Father Eric Cruz, director of Bronx Services, Catholic Charities New York, will serve as principal celebrant and homilist of the Puerto Rican Cultural Day Mass. Father Cruz is Bronx-born of Puerto Rican descent. 

As in past years, the Mass will be celebrated a week before the annual National Puerto Rican Day Parade, which is scheduled for Sunday, June 9, starting at 11 a.m., in Manhattan. The parade will go up Fifth Avenue from 44th Street to 79th Street.    

Our Lady of Rocio (Ecuador) 

Our Lady of Rocío, whose shrine in Ecuador attracts thousands of pilgrims each year, is a Marian devotion with origins dating to 17th-century Spain and which, through the years, was adopted by the people of Ecuador. The shrine is built into the rocks above the village of Biblián.

Organizers with the archdiocesan Our Lady of Rocio Committee have said the yearly cathedral Mass is an important celebration for which many people from the Ecuadorian community in the New York area are very thankful.   

They said many immigrants from Ecuador visit the shrine in Biblián to pray to Our Lady of Rocío before they leave to come to the United States – prayers for safety in their journeys and blessings in their future. The principal celebrant of this year’s Our Lady of Rocio Mass has not been set at press time.