For the 11th year the international relay run of the Antorcha Guadalupana passed through the Diocese of Corpus Christi and stopped at Holy Family Church located at 3157 MacArthur, on Oct. 30 arriving for a Mass at 7 p.m.
The run promotes devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe and hopes for a miracle regarding immigration reform from Our Lady of Guadalupe, who Blessed John Paul II made the Patroness of the Americas in 1999.
“We are one step closer this year with the deferred action for young immigrants,” Dora Hidalgo, coordinator for the Kingsville-Beeville run, said. “It is their (runners) strong faith that keeps them persevering.”
This year’s torch run began on Sept. 22 at the Basilica de Guadalupe, Mexico’s most visited church, where a Mass was offered for all the migrants who go through Mexico, for Mexicans who have left their country and for their families who stayed behind.
The Our Lady of Guadalupe runners will cross the border at Matamoros-Brownsville on Oct. 26.
This pilgrimage has become a tradition, and the image of the Virgin will arrive in New York at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Dec. 12, the Feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The run will take 81-days from Mexico City to New York City and involves 7,000 relay runners from both sides of the border.
The runners, who are in solidarity with the plight and of all immigrants, call themselves “messengers for the dignity of a people divided by the border.” They will be praying to the Virgin for the legalization of the 12-million undocumented immigrants, five million of them Mexicans in the U.S.
“There is no doubt that at a time when hostility toward immigrants is at an all time high, that the Virgin’s solidarity becomes even more important,” Hidalgo said. "The American dream has turned out to be death for those unable to continue the walk through the rough rugged areas of south Texas as well as other borders of Mexico and United States. Raids, deportation and divided families–this is the immigrant’s new reality.”