One Day. Five Million.

Two and a half times the number of Muslims who've spent the past week on Hajj in Mecca flooded Mexico City yesterday... as some pilgrims (plural) undertook the last hours -- again, plural -- of their journey up Tepeyac on bended knee.

If that doesn't blow your mind, something is wrong with you.

Meanwhile, aquí en el Norte, "pride," processions and torches filled the streets of midtown Manhattan as hundreds took part in a 17-mile march in San Antonio; LA essentially ground to a halt for the day and, after last year's 130,000 at Chicago's Maryville, this year's edition of Stateside Catholicism's largest gathering could only be estimated as "huge, huge." Midnight Misa y Mañanitas overflowed and rocked Salt Lake's magnificent Madeleine well into the early morn... and in a historic first, capacity issues with the long-growing River City celebrations at 17th and Morris gave way to the previously-unthinkable: conquista guadalupana de la casa del Faraón.

But regardless of what form each took, in a word they all reflected the same thing: viva y joven... viva y joven.

No wonder B16 invariably lights up in Spanish.

PHOTOS: AP/Dario Lopez-Mills(1); Brian Vander Brug/Los Angeles Times(2)

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