Living at Lake Chapala in Mexico

September is a fun time in Guadalajara and Lake Chapala as Mexico celebrates the 1810 call to independence from Spain's control. The country's charros (horsemen), plenty of music (mariachi of course) and tequila, the country's national drink, are all important ingredients in this important event.

Several Saint's days festivals are feted around Lake Chapala each year in June. The most traditional and devout of these north shore novenas is in honor of the patron saint of San Juan Cosalá, San Juan Bautista.

The novena begins on June 16 when the faithful residents of San Juan gather with fireworks, the town band and indigenous dancers early each morning and again in the evening to walk in a pilgrimage to the church to honor their patron St. John the Baptist.

According to Bible history, John was the son of the Virgin Mary's elderly cousin Ana, and Zachary, a priest of the temple in Jerusalem. Because John lived as a hermit in the desert for many years, statues and paintings usually portray him with a lamb (representing Jesus), wearing animal hides and carrying a staff topped with a small cross.

The church calendar records the date on which the saints died as their feast day. John the Baptist, like his cousin Jesus Christ is feted both on the date of his death and his birth. That the births of these cousins are celebrated during the summer and winter solstices is more than coincidence. Long before Christianity and the commemoration of these holy figures, all around the world long-established festivals and celebrations were customary on the solstices and equinoxes.

Mid-summer was a joyous time for pagan peoples; celebrated for the abundance of food and medicinal stuffs. By June the early crops were harvested, other crops were growing well and flowers and food were plentiful. June was the preferred time for weddings; in fact the first full moon in June was designated as "the honey moon" as newlyweds were fed dishes made with freshly harvested honey for the first month of their married lives.

The ancient Celts, Chinese, Romans, Scandinavians. Germanic and Slavic tribes all had special ceremonies for the June 24th one of the longest days of the year. Midsummers Day was once a celebration of trees, water, earth, fire, fertility and agriculture. All over the world, long awaited fiestas filled the magical short night with altars of thanksgiving, feasting, prayer, predictions and good luck charms.

By the middle ages and renaissance, even the dew on St. John's day was believed to have healing properties. Other highly venerated plants were ferns which were said to flower only once a year in the dark of Midsummer's Eve, along with grasses, clovers and the yellow star-shaped flowers of St. John's Wort. Even Native Americans got into the act with Hopi dancing to spirits for rain and fertility, sending messages between humanity and the Gods.

Precisely at sunset on St. John's Eve, men named John set chains of midsummer bonfires along the crests of hills, at the edges of rivers and lakes, and near graveyards all across Europe. It was believed the harvest would be better when the widest possible area of fields were illuminated by the fire, so a wooden wheel was soaked in tar or pitch and attached to a pole on the highest hill before being set afire.

The bonfires were blessed with Holy Water and therefore believed to exorcise the demons and keep the fairies away. Coals from the bonfires were carried to new homes to kindle the first fires and include the homes in the blessings. The bonfires were carefully tended until the dawn when the singing and dancing finally ended. The ashes from the fires were gathered and spread on the fields as a blessing and purification.

The enormous solemn final procession of the fiesta on the afternoon of the June 24 feast day of San Juan Bautista is the most awe-inspiring of any in this region of Mexico. The procession begins and ends at the church and the mass of faithful pilgrims stretches for blocks and grows as it moves through the village to the closing Mass of the nine-day celebration.

Several groups of indigenous dancers are interspersed with three or four bands, and thousands of people?from newborn babes to the most elderly members of the community walk together in the pilgrimage to honor their patron saint and in thanksgiving for their answered prayers to St. John the Baptist.

Many of the young girls wear their white First Communion or confirmation dresses for the procession. The great-grandmothers lean on the arms of their teenaged progeny. Blindfolded parish member and others with bare feet are guided along the harsh cobblestones as they fulfill a promise made while asking San Juan's intercession to bring their prayers to God's attention.

The tiny boys of the community are dressed to resemble John the Baptist as the Bible pictures him living in the wilderness. You'll see these animal skin-clad tots as the central focus of home ofrendas (altars) along the procession route and carried in their parents' arms for the long walk.

The thousand or so people are interspaced with carros alegóricos (elaborate floats with Biblical themes). Mounted on trucks these scenes are amazingly effective and created with great imagination and artistic touches. You'll often spot Moses being rescued from the rushes, Jesus baptized by his cousin St. John, Mary's visit to her Cousin Ana, or the child Jesus preaching to the elders in the temple.

While most Lakeside villages are places the emphasis more and more on the carnival, musical entertainment, drinking and dancing, the focus in San Juan Cosalá is still on the church and the religious aspects of old Mexican patron feast day traditions.

Want to attend? Be sure to attend the final procession in San Juan Cosalá. The late afternoon pilgrimage leaves the church about 6 p.m., moving to the west edge of town where it turns right onto the highway and proceeds east to San Juan's main street, Porfirio Díaz and back to the church. The participants include hundreds of villagers, several bands, pilgrims, elaborate floats and dancing indigenous groups all jostling for space in the narrow streets. Traffic through the village is stopped during the procession, so arrive early and don?t park on the procession route.

Every Mexican village, town, state, craft guild, union and organization has a patron saint to watch over their daily lives and work.

As the Franciscans were moving from village to village, they selected a Patron Saint for each new congregation and then added the Saint's name to the original Indian name. Thus Cosalá became San Juan Cosalá and Ajijic was known as San Andrés Ajijic. Tlayacapan, the settlement between San Francisco Chapala and Ajijic was assigned a favorite Franciscan saint, St. Anthony of Padua, and the name of San Antonio Tlayacapan.

In each community the indigenous quickly formed a common bond with their special protector, as each lakeside village was given a Biblical hero or Franciscan saint associated with boats, fishermen and bodies of water.

Because the little fishing settlements were established so near to one another along the shore of Lake Chapala. The clever padres also were consulting the church calendar and positioning the saints so that the celebration of each saint's day would not cause competition with a neighboring village and their fiesta.

The Feast day of San Antonio is celebrated on June 13, the date of his death in 1231. Beginning on June 1, the villagers fill each of the first 13 days of June with religious processions, Masses, sky rockets and devotion.

Each day of the fiesta begins with skyrockets to awaken the villagers at dawn for the pilgrimage to "Las Mañanitas" an early morning service of music, prayer and adoration. A 7 p.m. evening Mass follows the second procession of each day. Some of the evening processions feature groups reenacting dances of the indigenous people who lived at Lakeside before the arrival of the Spanish. You'll want to be sure to get some photos of the village children, both boys and girls who don brown Franciscan robes to be come "Tonitos and Tonitas" (small Anthonys and Antonias).

After Mass each night, the plaza in San Antonio Tlayacapan bursts with activity as the local townspeople and visitors from other villages and afar come to enjoy the carnival rides and games, meeting and greeting friends and neighbors, an occasional drink from a plaza terrace and the pleasant late spring evening. Sometime between 10 p.m. and Midnight, a set fireworks piece, called here in Mexico a castillo (castle) will be set off.

The excitement, size of the processions, numbers of flowers adorning the church and volume of the late night bands and fireworks all increase as the days of the fiesta continue, building to a climax on the last two or three nights.

The last night, June 13th, in San Antonio will feature huge crowds, a very large carnival and wonderful fireworks. Unfortunately a few fights also break out in San Antonio. Because the crowds there are so dense and hemmed in by the carnival, it can be hard to escape the melee. You might want to consider attending the fiesta earlier in the week to give San Antonio your best wishes-especially if you've recently lost a precious belonging or an important paper.

While San Antonio is revered as the patron against shipwrecks and starvation and the patron of Italy, boatmen, domestic animals, mariners, sailors and travelers, he is possibly best known for his ability to find lost trinkets and even husbands for hopeless spinsters.

A story recounting the loss and return of Antonio's precious book of psalms has prompted thousands of Catholics all around the word to ask him to intercede with God to return things lost or stolen.

"Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony please come around
Something is lost and needs to be found."

In some Mexican churches, statues of Saint Anthony are banked with candles left with prayers and petitions on small pieces of paper on Tuesdays, Anthony's special day. These petitions ask for assistance in finding employment, safely delivering a new baby, safe passage on a trip, finding a lost item, the reconciliation with a family member, and more.

The statues of San Antonio are easy to identify. He is an attractive, friendly young man, wearing the brown Franciscan robes and often the Christ child, frequently with a lily or the Bible to represent his devotion to Jesus, his purity, and his knowledge of the scriptures.

Some very old prayer cards and images show Anthony preaching to the fish at Rimini, recalling the legend of a day the heretics there refused to listen until they noticed the fish rise from the water in order to hear Anthony's words. Another popular story recounts Antonio's experience with a starving mule/horse. The hungry animal refused hay/oats until it had knelt to honor the Holy Sacrament when Antonio held both the grain and the host in the animal's view. In some of the older images, Antonio is shown in a blue robe as was the custom of the Spanish Franciscans until 1897.

From these and other miracles and legends, San Antonio is known as the patron saint of lost things, lonely spinsters, fish, mules, other animals, trees, and harvests. His travel and his own shipwreck makes him a favorite protector of fishermen, boatmen, sailors and shipwrecks.

In Mexico there are more than 60 communities hosting fiestas to honor San Antonio each June. At Lake Chapala, local legend assures us that the annual rains will surely begin by the Day of San Antonio, June 13, if not before.