SAN aNTONIO • Auxiliary Bishop Oscar Cantú joined in the Guadalupe torch relay and Archbishop José H. Gomez celebrated a Mass of welcoming and devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe at San Fernando Cathedral Nov. 5 as they greeted the runners of the Carrera Antorcha Guadalupana.

The group was in the midst of the south Texas leg of a run that began in Mexico City and will ultimately be completed at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City on Dec. 12.

Runners in the Carrera Antorcha Guadalupana, the Tepeyac Association and more than 300 residents of the Alamo City gathered in appreciation of Our Lady of Guadalupe and her intercession in the effort to “promote friendship and solidarity among Mexican-American community groups all along its path, provide a symbolic link for those families divided by the international border,” and raise awareness on immigration issues.

The participants in this run, reminiscent of the journey the Olympic torch makes, began recently at the Basílica de Guadalupe in Mexico City.

According to the Tepeyac Association, the sponsor of the run, its purpose is to represent “the fervor and faith Hispanics have for Our Lady of Guadalupe, arguably the premier national symbol of Mexico and its culture.”

 

 

For 65 years, three graduates of San Antonio’s Central Catholic High School killed during the U.S. invasion of Tarawa on Nov. 20, 1943, have been united in death. But they’ve lived on in the collective memory of their school’s community.

Their link was permanently memorialized Nov. 3, 2007, when school officials dedicated the William J. Bordelon Memorial in the building’s main foyer. Bordelon, the ROTC battalion major during his senior year in 1937-38, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor six years later for his extraordinary heroism and determination in leading men despite several serious wounds.

He was the first Medal of Honor recipient born and reared in San Antonio and the first Texas Marine to earn the nation’s highest medal for valor in World War II.