`SYMBOL OF HOPE AND FAITH' VIRGIN MARY HELPS FILL SPIRITUAL, SOCIAL NEED.

Byline: RICK COCA Staff Writer

Whether her image appears on votive candles, a muscle-bound back or a cathedral wall overlooking the Hollywood Freeway, La Virgen de Guadalupe's influence is witnessed daily in Los Angeles.

For Catholics, and even some non-Catholics, she has become a champion of causes and pursuits both spiritual and social, a mother figure for Mexico and the Americas -- both Tonantzin, the mother-God of the Aztecs, and Mary, the mother of Jesus.

As the faithful celebrate her feast day today, that presence continues to resonate 475 years after what they believe was her miraculous appearance to the Indian Juan Diego in Mexico City.

And in L.A., a city named in her honor, she has become ``a symbol of hope and faith,'' as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa described her at a recent performance about her apparition at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels attended by thousands.

``To immigrants in particular, she represents someone who is going to raise them up and really bring them to a better place,'' said the Rev. Paul Sustaya, who serves at two L.A. parishes and helped plan Cardinal Roger Mahony's liturgy for this week's services dedicated to La Virgen.

Despite originating in Mexico, the story of Juan Diego's ascension to sainthood from such humble beginnings appeals to more than just those of Mexican descent, including here in Southern California, where roughly 70 percent of the Los Angeles Archdiocese's estimated 5 million Catholics are Latinos.

``The president of our Guadalupano Society (at Holy Cross Church) is Nicaraguan,'' said Sustaya, who wrote his thesis about La Virgen while earning his master's degree from Boston College in 2000. ``And we have others that are from Guatemala and who you would think are Mexicans the way they love Guadalupe.''

In the story, the Virgin Mary appears to Juan Diego as a dark-skinned Indian and asks him to encourage the bishop to build a church in her honor so everyone will know she's the mother of God and available to all.

When she came to the United States from Mexico 33 years ago, Lupe Lomeli was looking for a Catholic church. She found Saint Didacus Church in Sylmar, and when she walked in and saw La Virgen, she knew she was home -- a sentiment shared by many Catholic immigrants.

``You're somewhere alone,'' she said. ``You're not in your own home. You don't know about your future. Without someone like her, without someone that's important in your life, you would be lost.''

Saint Didacus Monsignor Peter Amy reminds his parishioners that La Virgen is the patron saint of all the Americas. At its event in her honor last year, he said, the church displayed dozens of flags representing the nations of the Americas, as well as the Philippines, where she is also the patron saint.

``We are many nations and many languages, but we are one faith,'' Amy said.

Beyond religion, her symbol has historically been used for political strength as well. In the 1960s, Cesar Chavez and other Chicano leaders emulated the Rev. Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and other Mexican revolutionary heroes and used the image of La Virgen as a source of inspiration in their own political and social battles.

And for women, those movements inspired other interpretations of La Virgen, including a more feminist approach to the traditional matriarch.

``(La Virgen) is a multifaceted symbol. She's a symbol of revolution in the labor movement, but she has also been used to suppress women's power,'' said Lara Medina, who teaches history and religion in the Chicano/a Studies Department at California State University, Northridge. ``So younger women have had to look at her image and in order to keep it alive, they have had to keep it meaningful in their lives ... to kind of release her from the shackles that patriarchy has kept her under.''

Even for gang members, the story of La Virgen hits home because it is really about the story of Juan Diego, a poor, insignificant Indian -- an outcast, much like them, said the Rev. Gregory Boyle.

``It's about this person who describes himself as nothing,'' said Boyle, executive director of Homeboy Industries, a program that helps reform gang members by employing them. ``There's the connection of reaching out to this marginalized, most left-out person, and that's the person chosen. People relate to that.''

Boyle said many of the homeboys he deals with have tattoos of La Virgen, but it doesn't always lead to healthy, spiritual behavior.

``You're always trying to get them to internalize the outward,'' he said.

That's not to say some don't go through their own Juan Diego-like transformations.

``There was a kid coming to get his gang tattoos removed,'' Boyle said. ``But there was a big Virgen de Guadalupe tattoo on his back -- and that wasn't going anywhere.''

rick.coca(at)dailynews.com

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CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Catholics celebrate the Virgin Mary's appearance to Juan Diego in Mexico 475 years ago. She continues to have a strong attraction to immigrants and others in L.A. Here a procession marches along Alvarado Street to Conception Church five miles away.

(3) Catholics march in a five-mile procession to Conception Church in downtown Los Angeles to celebrate the Virgin Mary's appearance to Juan Diego in Mexico City nearly 500 years ago. The patron saint of the Americas remains an important symbol.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News

Box:

Our Lady of Guadalupe prayer