Dec. 12: Utah's new holiday

There was a time the word "Guadalupe" was so foreign to local ears that one reporter actually spelled it "Guad A Lew Bay." In times past, the Virgin of Guadalupe — the patron saint of Mexico — was hardly a local afterthought. Salt Lake City had the Guadalupe Center on the west side and the Guadalupe Parish, but the history and importance of the name seldom registered.

Now it is beginning to register.

Today, Dec. 12, is the feast day for the Virgin of Guadalupe. And "La Morena" — Mexican's affectionately call her — has become a local presence.

For such reasons, a short primer seems in order.

The Virgin of Guadalupe is actually the Virgin Mary. Tradition has it she appeared to a young peasant named Juan Diego on Guadalupe Hill near Mexico City some 500 years ago. She told him to build her a church. The Catholic bishop of the era was wary, needless to say. He told Diego to return and bring back a sign. The young man went to the hill where the Virgin Mary wrapped roses in his cloak. When Diego unrolled the roses for the bishop, a gorgeous painting of the virgin graced his cloak.

Today, that cloak hangs in the Guadalupe Shrine in Mexico City. And the figure on it — a young woman robed in blue, stars about her head, with her head slightly inclined to the left — has become the symbol for an entire people.

Emiliano Zapata and other revolutionaries wore her image on their sombreros during the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Catholic bookstores sell Guadalupe icons by the thousands.

Locally, when the "Tree of the Virgin" was discovered in Salt Lake City and made into a shrine, it was because the image of the virgin, head bowed, showed up where a branch had been trimmed.

The outline of the same image has surfaced throughout the Southwest on everything from dented cars to fresh tortillas.

In Utah, Juan Diego High School is named for the peasant who spoke with the virgin. And last year, when Pope John Paul II canonized Diego as a Catholic saint, the school's stature increased.

In the past, Utah's school kids have studied the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe as a custom from another land. Now, given the influx of immigrants from Mexico, her day is becoming a phenomenon.

Those who see immigration as a political issue are sure to complain about the watering down of the "American Way." Those who feel, however, that any trace of good will is a bonus in a struggling world will welcome the virgin and her day of compassion with open arms.

We stand with the latter.