Charles Lara Delgado, of La Salle, is 5 and prone to squirming, but he stood mostly still while his mother Cynthia dressed him in 16th century Mexican clothes and even painted a mustache over his lip.

Maybe it’s because Charles is old enough now to understand the significance of Sunday’s feast.

When Cynthia was expecting she prayed to Our Lady of Guadalupe for a healthy baby. Each year since, Delgado dresses him as St. Juan Diego to commemorate one of the great feast days and express her gratitude.

“I promised to bring my son or daughter every year,” Cynthia said. “We’ve been coming since he was born.”

The Delgado family had plenty of company as they took their seats in St. Hyacinth Church. A year after the holy day was muted by COVID-19, Hispanic members of the La Salle Catholic Parishes flocked back to St. Hyacinth’s for Dec. 12 feast day.

Esmeralda Cruz popped in at dawn to see if the daylong events were drawing any kind of crowd and was relieved to see the early-morning prayers were well-attended and, more importantly, that everyone was masked.

“I had hoped this year there would be a big turnout given the fact that most of the Hispanic community have been vaccinated and we have been having a good turnout in the novenas for Guadalupe,” Cruz said.

Cruz had helped oversee an April clinic to immunize members of La Salle’s Spanish-speaking community and the event was deemed a success, drawing more than 400 to get their first shot.

“Most feel safer given the fact that most that attended the clinic were from our community and around the community,” Cruz said, “and they do feel safe enough to attend.”

Indeed, the church was packed with several children (and a few adults) dressed in period clothes and adults who arrived with flowers and candles to be placed in front of a large depiction of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The feast commemorates a 16th century apparition of the Virgin Mary that obliterated pagan worship in Mexico in little more than a decade and soon spread to the Americas. St. Juan Diego was a poor peasant from modern-day Mexico City who reported an apparition to secular and ecclesiastical authorities, none of whom at first believed him. Diego won over his skeptics when he presented authorities with non-native flowers and an image on his outer garment (or tilma) showing a woman much like the one described in Revelation 12:1, “A woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet.”

Ecclesiastical authorities understood the biblical significance of the image and the pagan natives grasped the symbolism and quickly embraced Christianity and historians estimate 3,000 baptisms were performed daily over the next seven years until some 8 million indigenous people were converted.

Our Lady of Guadalupe remains a holy day of obligation in Mexico and is piously observed in Spanish-speaking parishes across Illinois.

The Very Rev. Thomas Otto, pastor of the La Salle parishes, said he was pleased with Sunday’s turnout, particularly after his parishioners weathered the worst of the pandemic.

“People have been waiting for this two years,” Otto said. “It’s tremendous to see the faith of people, especially in the face adversity, and just their desire to be together and be strengthened by prayer and worship and Our Lady of Guadalupe and her son, Our Blessed Lord.”

And while first and foremost a religious observance, the feast doubles as a celebration of Mexican heritage. While the celebration hasn’t grown numerically bigger with each passing year – the novel coronavirus saw to that – it has at least grown more elaborate with and a mariachi band and, new this year, an Aztec dance troupe that performed during the wee hours.

That was an especially meaningful addition for Deacon Gabriel Guerrero, a native of Mexico who also spent three years as an Aztec dancer himself.

“I’m just so happy to bring the culture over here.”