Every December literally millions of people set out on pilgrimages in honour of La Virgen, Our Lady of Guadalupe. This representation of the ‘Mother of God’, made in 1531, is reproduced all over Mexico. It is amazing how one image can captivate a culture.
Their motivations are mixed: some are showing their devotion to the Virgin; some want to earn favour and outweigh sin committed; some go with gratitude for a healing they feel the Virgin gave them.
Last December evangelist Ed Aulie found a group of exhausted men, pilgrims broken down as they cycled the long journey home, each with 120-pound statues of the Virgin on their backs. They told him: ‘These images will pay for the trip home because they have been carried on a pilgrimage’.
