The Virgin of Zapopan Visits Chapala

2025 Info

The procession starts at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, July 13, at the north entrance to Chapala on Francisco Madero Avenue. Hundreds of musicians, charros, and dancers from various traditions will march down Francisco Madero. It ends at Church San Francisco around noon.

Procession Route for the Virgin of Zapopan in Chapala

The procession starts south of Soriana on Avenue Francisco Madero and ends at Church San Francisco just north of the malecón.

What is the Virgin of Zapopan?

The Virgin of Zapopan is Mexico’s oldest Catholic icon, believed to have origins in 16th-century Spain. Other histories say it was made in Michoacán. The original is currently kept at the Basilica of Our Lady of Zapopan, in the city just west of Guadalajara, and it only leaves the basilica, briefly, twice a year.

Four replicas of the wood relic tour towns and cities in Mexico to take part in religious processions made of hundreds or sometimes thousands of followers and pilgrims. Almost 2,000,000 people attend her annual October 12 feast day procession in Guadalajara, making it one of Mexico’s most important pilgrimages.

The Virgin has visited Chapala each year since 1955 and in 2009 she was coronated as the “queen” or protectress of Lake Chapala.

The procession lasts about 90 minutes, followed by an outdoor mass in front of San Francisco Church.

After the mass, dancers accompany the Virgin as she’s taken down the malecón and to the shore, where the clergy pray and ask the Virgin for a year of heavy rains to fill the lake.

Monday, July 14

The next day, the Virgin gets ferried to the Island of the Scorpions accompanied by dozens of other boats filled with devotees. There is no cost, but hundreds of people line up on the malecón to accompany her, so space is limited.

The boats are donated by the local fishermen, who have some interest in seeing that the Virgin blesses the lake and provides them with enough fish to last the year.

On the island, a mass is held and afterward, a fish fry is held for the hundreds of parishioners who made the 30-minute boat ride.