Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe

(Miraculous image on St. Juan Diego's tilma of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe)

Today is the Feast of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadelupe). It commemorates the appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Juan Diego Cuautlatoatzin at Tepeyac near Mexico City, MX in 1531. St. Juan Diego, a Chichimeca peasant, was on his way to daily Mass on Saturday 9 December 1531 when Mary 1st appeared to him. He heard a voice called out his name. When he got to the place on Tepeyac where the voice was coming from he saw a beautiful woman. She spoke to him in Nahuatl, the Aztec language.

“Know, beloved son, that I am the immaculate ever-virgin Mary, Mother of the true God who is the Origin of all life, who creates all things and keeps them in being, the Lord of Heaven and Earth. I greatly wish, I earnestly desire, that my house should be built in this very place. I will show him to you there and praise him as I show him, my Love and Compassion, my Help and Defence. For in truth I am your compassionate Mother, yours and of all who live together in this land and of any others who love me, seek me, and call on me with confidence and devotion. In that house I will listen to their weeping and their sadness, I will give them help in their troubles and a cure for their misfortunes. So that this desire of mine may be fulfilled, go to Mexico City, to the palace of the Bishop. Tell him that I have sent you to him to tell him how much I want a house to be built here for me, a church built here at the bottom of the hill.”

Jaun Diego went to the Bishop, Juan Zumárraga, a Franciscan. When he told the bishop what she said, hewasn't completely convinved that Juan Diego was telling him the truth. So he said: “My son, come another time and I will listen to you then. Meanwhile I will consider what should be done about your wish and your desire.” On his way back from the Bishop Mary again appeared & he told her what happenned. She told him to return to the Bishop the next day with the same message. When he did, the Bishop told Juan Diego to ask for a sign from the lady who claimed to be the Mother of God to prove that what he was saying was true.

On returning to Tepeyac, Mary again appeared & Juan Diego told her the Bishop's message. She said: “Well and good, my little dear, you will return here tomorrow, so you may take to the bishop the sign he has requested. With this he will believe you, and in this regard he will not doubt you nor will he be suspicious of you; and know, my little dear, that I will reward your solicitude and effort and fatigue spent of my behalf. Lo! go now. I will await you here tomorrow.”

However, the next day Juan Diego's uncle Juan Bernardino fell ill & Juan Diego stayed home to care for him. On Tuesday 12 December, Juan Diego went for a priest to give his uncle the last rites. As he approached Tepeyac, he went arround on the other side of the hill to avoid the possibility fo Mary appearing to him. But she still appeared. She asked why he was going this way & he told her about his uncle.

She lovingly replied: “Listen, my beloved son, have no fear or anxiety in your heart. Do not try to do anything about your uncle’s grave illness or about any other trouble of yours. For am I not here with you, your mother? Are you not safe in the shadow of my protection? Am I not the source of your life and your happiness? Am I not holding you in my lap, wrapped in my arms? What else can you possibly need? Do not be upset or distressed. Climb again, my beloved son, to the summit of this hill, to the place where you saw me and heard me speak. You will find flowers growing there. Pick them and gather them and bring them down to me.”

In obedience, Juan Diego climbed to the top of the hill. There he found Castillian roses in bloom. He filled his tilma with them. He returned to Mary. She took the roses, blessed them & arranged them in his tilma saying: “Most beloved son, these flowers are the sign that you are to carry to the Bishop. You yourself are my messenger and I entrust myself to your faithfulness. I strictly command you not to unfold your tilma in front of anyone except the Bishop; but to him you should show what it is you are carrying. As you do so, tell him the story of how I asked you to climb to the top of the hill and pick the flowers there. Tell him everything you saw and marvelled at, so that he will believe you and undertake to build the church I wish for.”

Juan Diego hurried to the Bishop. When he got there & saw the Bishop he said: "My Lord, have done as you asked. I went to my Lady, the Queen of Heaven, holy Mary, the Mother of God, and told her that you had asked for a sign so that you might believe me and build the church that the Virgin herself desires. I told her that I had given my word to bring you back some sign of her wishes. She heard what you had asked and accepted with good grace your request for some sign so that you could fulfil her will. Today, very early, she sent me back to see you.”

With that, Juan Diego unfolded his tilma, the roses fell out. The Bishop immediately fell to his knees as the image of Mary appeared. The image is the 1 pictured above. The Bishop now believed Juan Diego & set about to do as Mary had asked.

As for Juan Bernardino, when Juan Diego returned home he found his uncle well. Juan Bernardino related how Mary had appeared to him & explained what had happenned to his nephew.

After the church was built the Bishop moved the tilma from his private chapel to the church. In the next few years a huge number of conversions to Catholicism by the natives occured. The Church became a pilgrimage site. As the number of pilgims grew they replaced the church with a larger 1. This was done several times, the latest being dedicated in 1976. The Church became a basilica in 1904. It is known as the Basilica de Santa Maria de Guadelupe.

St. Juan Diego was born Cuautlatoatzin (eagle that talks) in 1474. He was a field laborer & made mats. At the age of 50 he & his wife were converted to Christianity. They were baptised by Fr Peter da Gand, 1 of the 1st Franciscan missionaries. They took the names Juan Diego & Maria Lucia. In 1529 Maria Lucia died. After the 1st church was built Juan Diego moved into a room attached to the church. There he lived a life as a hermit & cared for the church as well as the 1st pilgrims. He died on 30 May 1548. He was declared a saint by Pope John Paul the Great on 31 July 2002 at the Basilica.

The tilma has its own interesting story. It is made of ayate fiber a coarse fabric made from the maguey cactus. This fabric usually decomposed in less than 20 yrs. The fact that it hasn't is a miracle in itself. & it has survived an acid spill as well as a bomb blast. Tests on the image show that it was applied with now paint brush strokes in a way & with a material unknown. & some examinations of the eyes show the image of a man that some say is Juan Diego.

The entire picture of Mary on it is full of symbolism. This symbolism would have been understood by the Aztecs. It thus proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus in a way that they could understand.

Because Mary appears in front of the sun they saw her as bringing a god who was greater than their sun god. It also reflected the image of Mary found in Revelation 12. The crescent moon symbolized their feathered serpent-god Quyentzalcoatl. This reflected the proto-evangeleum found in Genesis 3. The belt symbolizes a woman who is pregnant, showing Mary as the Mother of God. The blue-green color of her mantle was the color of royalty. She was queen & her child would also be royalty. Thus it proclaimed Jesus as King. The picture as a whole showed that the Christain religion was the true religion & not the Aztec religion. Also, Tepeyac was a hill sacred to the Aztecs as the site of a temple to the mother-goddess Tonantzin. Mary's appearing there also showed that she was bringing the religon to replace their false on. It was the use of this image & the fact of where Mary appeared that enabled the early missionaries to spread the Gospel as quickly as they did.

This image has also become the image that symbolizes the pro-life movement in the Catholic Church. The reason comes from the fact that when Christianity replaced the Aztec religion it was a victory of the true faith over a religion that involved the sacrifice of human beings. According to Wikipedia there were about 20000 humans sacrificed each year. In 1487 a temple in what is now Mexico City was dedicated. Eye witness accounts say that the 4 day dedication involved the sacrifice of over 80000 people. Abortion is the sacrament of modern day secular humanism. Over 3500 babies are sacrificed every day. Just as God used the miraculous image of Mary to spread the Gospel of Jesus to Mexico we see the image as bringing the message of the Gospel of Life into this horrible situation & that 1 day too, we will see the end of abortion just as Mexico saw the end of human sacrifice.

(Post # 200)