To mark the first day of National Hispanic Heritage Month, Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory celebrated Mass for the students at St. Martin of Tours Catholic School in Gaithersburg, Maryland, on Sept. 15. His concelebrants included Father David Wells, St. Martin’s pastor; and  Father Patrick Agustin and Father Stefan Yap, who serve as parochial vicars at the parish; and Father Iwele Gode, who helps celebrate French Masses at St. Martin’s. The community at St. Martin of Tours Parish is largely Hispanic, and the students were excited to begin the celebrations. 

During his procession at the start of Mass, students lined the aisle carrying small flags from different Latin American countries. 

The cardinal began his homily in Spanish, touching upon the topic of mothers. He emphasized that mothers consistently hold their children dear in their hearts, from the very moment of birth and beyond, throughout their entire lives. This was in reference to the reading from Luke’s gospel, where Simeon blessed Jesus’s parents and told Mary about what Jesus would go through as an adult, sacrificing himself for others.

“We Catholics bestow many different titles on Mary that detail our affection for and our relationship to this wondrous woman. She belongs to every culture, every race, and every ethnic community. Our Hispanic brothers and sisters have been particularly creative in granting titles to Mary,” Cardinal Gregory said.

September 15 marks the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, based on Simeon’s prophecy. 

“What an apparently unusual title to bestow on this graced woman. Yet it is a title that comes to her because she shared, as only a true mother could, in the sufferings of her son. As she watched Jesus led to Calvary and crucified as a common criminal, she bore the pain of a mother witnessing a son’s death,” Cardinal Gregory said.

The cardinal elaborated that Mary is not only affected by Jesus’s suffering but also experiences pain when people commit sins.

“Our harsh and unkind language in speaking to others, our violence and hatred directed toward neighbors, our intolerance and rejection of our sisters and brothers because of race, culture, religion, or any other distinguishing qualities only add to the sorrow of the mother of us all,” Cardinal Gregory said. 

The cardinal told the students and attendees of the Mass that the day should be a time to “disavow sinful attitudes.” 

“Let us try never to add to her sorrows. Amen,” Cardinal Gregory said. 

Following Communion, Stephen Lamont, the principal of St. Martin of Tours Catholic School, thanked the cardinal for celebrating the Mass, and a student presented Washington’s archbishop with a red St. Martin of Tours jacket. Lamont also explained how, for the cardinal’s recent 50th anniversary of his priesthood, the school was collecting food for the parish’s pantry, in a drive dubbed “50 for 50,” with the goal of collecting 50 needed items per week.

Rocio Pineda has worked at St. Martin of Tours for 14 years with the school’s aftercare program. She also works as a medical technician and is in her second year as a pre-kindergarten teacher for the school. 

“It’s a great community, it’s great helping everybody that needs a little bit of a helping hand,” Pineda said. 

“There’s a lot of culture out there that we need to learn from, not just Hispanic, but we have other cultures we have to celebrate. Hispanic culture is a big one right now, and we need to learn a little bit from everybody,” Pineda said. 

Pineda teaches her class curriculum in both English and Spanish. She said that she was part of the planning of a luncheon for the cardinal featuring food from different Spanish-speaking countries. 

“We were told [the cardinal] could not stay to eat lunch, so we are going to present it to the staff to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month,” Pineda said. “We have pupusas, pork chops, pastelitos, arroz con leche, horchata, and a little more.” 

The food was set up in the school’s library with little flags indicating which country each item represented. 

Andrea Villars is a Spanish teacher at St. Martin’s and an alumnus of the school’s class of 2010. She spoke on the importance of students celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month. 

“It’s super important, in my opinion, because I think we should teach kids about the different cultures, the different heritages. Yes, different countries speak Spanish, but it’s very different [culturally],” Villars said. “For example, in Mexico, the way they celebrate their culture is very different than someone from Colombia.” 

Villars stresses culture in her classes, not just language, by taking students on virtual field trips.

“I have a wheel, and it has all the Spanish-speaking countries, and we pick wherever it lands on. That’s the country we’ll be studying for the next week or so,” Villars said. “We take notes, we watch a lot of videos on the countries, we learn about their food, about the music, anybody who is important from that country.”

The students then complete a final project at the end of the field trip. Villars explained that when her students were studying Ecuador, the students learned about “guaguas de pan,” which are sweet bread rolls decorated and shaped into babies to celebrate Día de los Muertos, “The Day of the Dead” on All Souls’ Day. 

Villars had students get creative and decorate their own guaguas de pan.

“It’s to celebrate their loved ones. What I had my kids do, I had a template and printed a worksheet out for each one of them. They got to decorate it and design it with puffy paint so it was like the icing almost. They really enjoyed that. So I always make sure to tie some project into the country that we’re learning,” Villars said. 

Although Catholicism continues to see a decline among the Hispanic population, according to the Pew Research Center, Hispanic people “remain about twice as likely as U.S. adults overall to identify as Catholic.” Villars said it is important for her students to understand the connection between Hispanic heritage and Catholicism. 

“Especially here in this community, our church has a lot of Hispanic people that join. I know that the Church does a really good job of having different events, and I know that here, in school, they tie in the fact of being Hispanic [and Catholic],” Villars said. “One of the religion teachers covers the prayers in Spanish, and in music [class], they cover the songs like we heard in Mass.”