A life-size, three-dimensional reproduction of Our Lady of Guadalupe is set to travel through the Archdiocese of Los Angeles from November 23 through December 13, 2026, stopping at three sites before concluding its run at the downtown cathedral. Known as Madre Peregrina, or Pilgrim Mother, the sculpture will spend its first stretch at Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, move to East Los Angeles, and finish at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels with a major December 11 celebration.
According to NBC Los Angeles, church officials announced the sculpture's visit as part of an international pilgrimage. The tour's first leg runs at Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in San Gabriel from November 23 through December 3, before the statue moves to Our Lady of the Rosary of Talpa Catholic Church in East Los Angeles from December 4 through December 8. It then concludes at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles from December 9 through December 13.
Archbishop José H. Gomez said the sculpture's visit would be, in his words, a profound source of spiritual strength and unity for the Archdiocese's Catholic community. The outlet's report also quotes Gomez describing the visit as something that will bring hope and unity to communities of faith and serve as a spiritual blessing.
A 50-Minute Veneration With Music and Prayer
At Mission San Gabriel and Our Lady of the Rosary of Talpa, organizers plan a 50-minute veneration experience built around music, an account of the Guadalupe apparitions, a decade of the rosary and a message from Pope Leo XIV, the same report notes. Visitors at those stops will also receive ribbons on which they can write prayer petitions.
Those petitions are intended to travel far beyond Los Angeles. The written prayers will be presented at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, according to the Archdiocese, the same site where the international tour of the sculpture first began.
Las Mañanitas Caps Off the Cathedral Stop
The Cathedral's annual Las Mañanitas celebration is scheduled for December 11, and this year it will coincide with the sculpture's final days on display. The celebration is set to include Cathedral Plaza festivities, a rosary, a traditional serenade and a midnight Mass, which Gomez will celebrate.
The statue was created in Mexico City by artist Jorge Ismael Rodríguez López de Lara, and its journey through Southern California is part of a much larger international circuit. The tour has visited 16 U.S. cities, including Chicago and New York, as well as destinations in the Philippines and Japan, per the Archdiocese's account relayed by the outlet.
Organizers are also framing the Los Angeles visit within a longer horizon: it is described as part of spiritual preparations for the 500th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which approaches in 2031, according to OSV News. That outlet has separately reported that a related U.S. tour of the sculpture began in Chicago in August 2025 and was expected to continue through several states before heading to Europe and Africa.
Part of a Longer Tradition of Guadalupe Pilgrimages in LA
This is not the first time an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe has made the rounds of the Archdiocese. In 2021, a pilgrimage of images of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego kicked off with a Spanish-language Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, celebrated by Gomez, according to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Those images were available for veneration at the cathedral from October 14 through October 21 of that year before touring parishes and cemeteries ahead of a December 5 procession and Mass honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe.
An earlier pilgrimage in 2016 was even more expansive, visiting more than three dozen parishes and other sites across the Archdiocese, as reported by vcstar.com. That 2016 journey ended on December 4 with an East Los Angeles procession and Mass that organizers expected to draw as many as 20,000 people. This year's Madre Peregrina visit follows that same East LA route before its downtown finale.
