Our Lady of Guadalupe is serving up comfort food this Lent

Our Lady of Guadalupe has always cooked its way through hard times.

“This parish was built one taco at a time; one enchilada at a time,” said the Rev. James Bernard, pastor of the oldest Spanish-speaking church in Minnesota.

Other Catholic churches lighten the austere season of Lent with fried fish dinners in the church basement. But this close-knit parish on the lower West Side of St. Paul has a different take on comfort food.

“We’re not a wealthy parish. We’re a break-even parish and so we fundraise and we have food sales when we need money to fix something,” Bernard said. “Lenten enchiladas is our biggest fundraiser of the year.”

This year, the weekly dinners offer a chance to come together to community that’s been torn apart for months. Bernard said church attendance declined this year as many parishioners stayed home while thousands of ICE agents were here.

On Feb. 20, the first Friday of Lent, folk art bunting draped the parish hall. The kitchen bustled with volunteers mixing cheese enchilada filling and preparing gallons of sauce from a recipe that is one family’s closely guarded secret. A table at the back of the hall was heaped with homemade desserts.

“We need it every year, but now more than ever,” said Bernard, who was first in line for the first plate of enchiladas that first Friday.

“I would describe us as a vibrant parish … but with all the immigration things going on, we haven’t seen the life lately that we’re used to,” Bernard said. “That’s one of the things I’m looking forward to. This brings so much life to the parish and so much life to the community, just to have people here talking and being with one another.”

Tony Ruiz, Len Sanchez and Larry Lucio were baptized at Our Lady of Guadalupe and grew up in the same West Side neighborhood. Now in their 70s, they all sat down to enchiladas on Friday.

“I mean, it can’t get any better than this,” said Sanchez, gesturing from his plate to the people in the room.

Most years, they make it here nearly every Friday in Lent. It’s a chance to catch up with friends, neighbors, cousins, godparents and the elderly lady pouring coffee who used to babysit Ruiz.

“It’s all family, we’re interlocked,” Ruiz said. “The lower West Side was all family and it’s still that way today — together when the storm comes, we’ll definitely survive.”

“People just have to try these for themselves,” said Terry Holt, who grew up in St. Paul. “I’ve been to many other [Lenten fish fry dinners] and that was OK, but I’m not coming back. This is different.”

A great deal of work goes into every plate.

“They started at 8 this morning. All these people have been volunteering for decades,” said Linda Nunez, working in the kitchen with the other volunteers. As the weeks go by, she said, the dinners usually get more crowded, until the kitchen is scrambling to keep up with demand. “It’s all traditionally made, nothing out of a can.”

As happy as she is to see her fellow parishioners, she’s hoping to see some new faces this year. Minnesotans have shown up for their neighbors and for immigrant businesses during Operation Metro Surge. Maybe they’ll show up for enchiladas too.

“Only positive vibes,” she said. “That’s the goal.”