Fiesta procession

The staff went out to join the procession after the 4 pm mass 

This is from 3 years ago:

   

the city patron saint is Mama Mary under the title la Devina Pastora, the holy shepherdess. 

 December 8 is the feast of the Immaculate Conception, which merely means that Mary would be born without the taint of sin. This belief is the Catholic version of a belief of Mary's sinlessness that is found in the Eastern Churches and Islam. If you believe Jesus is God, you can see how his mother who carried him for nine months should be sinless. Or as the Angel called her: Full of Grace. 

 This of course makes my Protestant family full of disdain. They are strict Baptist/Fundamentalists. But Catholics allow all sorts of approaches to God, and here it is family oriented: Mama Mary is seen as our mother, Jesus the older brother, and God the Father the father who runs things. and of course, Catholics remember the marriage feast of Cana where Mama Mary told her son that the wine gave out. So we often see her as the one to ask to go to God for our minor problems that we don't want to bother the creator of the universe with. 

 And of course, Fiestas are how we learn about God and Jesus. Fiestas and parties and gifts for kids.