Mexico City - Pilgrims from across Mexico arrived Friday at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in a northern district of the Mexican capital, to celebrate the feast of the so-called Virgin Morena, Mexico's popular patron.

Every year, more than 5 million faithful take part in the pilgrimage to the Guadalupe sanctuary on December 9-12. There, they sing to the images of the Virgin in the early hours of December 12 to celebrate her apparition to an indigenous man named Juan Diego in 1531, according to popular belief.

Popular artists like Lucero, Lucia Mendez and Marco Antonio Solis attended the midnight mass to sing to the Virgin and honour her. The presence of show business figures has long been a Mexican tradition at the ceremony.

In 2002, in his fifth and last visit to Mexico, the late pope John Paul II canonized Juan Diego, to make him the first-ever indigenous American saint. dpa