Women's Ministry and Home Altars

Ministry at Sagrado Corazón, as with many parishes, is significantly decentralized. With the support of clergy and staff, laywomen lead an important ministry of the parish, extending the support and worship life of the parish into people's homes and lives.

The home altar kept by Maricela Toledano, a Sagrado Corazón parishioner, includes deceased family members alongside images of Mary and Jesus.

The daily center of this diffused ministry is not the church but the home altars created by devout Hispanic women throughout South Minneapolis and in surrounding communities. Devotions around these altars sustain women and their families and consecrate everyday life in the presence of God and the saints, especially Mary. Hispanic Catholics afford special veneration to the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe, who appeared in 1531 to the Aztec peasant Juan Diego at the hill of Tepeyac in Mexico. She is considered to be the Patroness of the Americas and is an extremely important national symbol of Mexico; the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City attracts 20 million pilgrims annually. These home altars are the foundation of lay women's authority in the community. Ministry leaders Gloria Sánchez and Maricela Toledano insist that the home altars take their place alongside, not in competition with, the parish altar and the Mass. The women's ministry, they stressed, connects women and their households to the parish, its sacramental life, and to one another.

The women's ministry starts with devotion and faith formation, but like everyday life in Catholic homes, it hardly stops there. Sagrado Corazón's women's ministry creates networks and relationships that can break through the isolation that many immigrants, especially women, can feel from economic hardship, immigration status, linguistic challenges, and a recent pandemic, empowering them to improve their lives and to support their families.

More information on Marian devotion can be found at Pluralism.org.