Note
a rare Holiday two-fer today!
Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of Mexico and Empress of the Americas,
Patroness of the Americas, and
most recently Patroness of the Unborn.
An image of her preserved on cloth in a Mexico City
Basilica is the object of almost universal
adoration in Mexico and among the large Mexican diaspora in the United
States. She has been called the
“rubber band which binds this disparate nation into a whole.” Mexican literary
icons have attested to her importance.
Carlos Fuentes said that “you
cannot truly be considered a Mexican unless you believe in the Virgin of
Guadalupe” and Nobel Literature laureate
Octavio Paz that “the Mexican people, after more than two centuries of
experiments, have faith only in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery.”
The origin story goes like this.
On December 9, 1531, just ten years
after the conquest of Mexico by Hernando Cortez, Juan Diego,
an Indian peasant and particularly pious convert to Catholicism, was walking
by the Hill of Tepeyac then outside
of the capital city. A temple to Tonantzin, the Aztec goddess
of love and fertility, had surmounted the hill but been razed in the Church’s campaign to obliterate traditional worship. When he
glanced up the hill he beheld a maiden who
bade him in his native Nahuatl language to build a church on the site
in her name. He surmised that she must
be that she must be the Virgin Mary although
she did not identify herself.
Juan Diego hurried to Fray Juan de Zumárraga, the Archbishop of Mexico with his
tale. The Franciscan was impressed with his piety but skeptical of the story. He
instructed Juan Diego to return to the hill and ask the apparition for proof of her identity. The peon returned three more times to the hill over the next two days
and the Virgin spoke to him each time.
He first asked for a miraculous sign. When he returned home he found that his
uncle, who had been dying, was healed.
On his final trip to the Hill the
virgin commanded him to gather flowers at
the summit. These were not native
flower, but red Castilian roses blooming
out of season. Juan Diego gathered them
in his tilma or cloak and
took the bundle to the Archbishop Zumárraga.
When he opened his cloak December 12, the flowers fell to the floor, and
on the fabric was the image of the Virgin.
This was enough to convince
Archbishop who ordered a chapel be built at the base of the hill where the
cloak would be displayed. Juan Diego,
his wife, and his uncle were given leave to build a hovel next to the hermitage of Franciscan fathers sent to
attend the shrine and to act as
their servant. He reportedly died there in 1548.
The revered image has been altered
over the years, although not the central image of the Virgin on the tilma. The figure of a dark skinned virgin is four foot eight inches high. Her gown
is a tawny rose tinted color said to recall the Mexican landscape. She is
girded by a thin black sash which is
taken as a sign of pregnancy. She
wears a blue mantle traditionally
associated with Mary. Sharp beams radiate from her suggesting that
she is “brighter than the Sun.” One foot
rests on the Moon and the other on a
snake’s head. This has been interpreted as her victory over
darkness and triumph over the pagan Aztec
feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl and/or the serpent of temptation from the Garden
of Eden.
She may have originally had a crown on her head or that might have
been added later. Still later the crown
was decorated with gold which deteriorated over the years. In 1899 the crown was erased either because
of the deterioration or to bring the image more into line with the republican sentiments of the
people. The tilma was reframed with the
top being brought down just above the Virgin’s head to disguise damage in the
process of the erasure. Other additions
over time included stars painted on
the inside of her mantle representing the constellations
of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, a supporting angel below her, and silver decoration which has also
deteriorated. Despite being centuries
old on an unstable medium, however
that central image remains remarkably bright.
Aside from its singular religious
significance the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe has become a rallying point for the national aspirations of the Mexican
people, particularly for the Indios and
mestizos. The peon
army of Padre Miguel Hidalgo
after El Grito de Delores marched
behind a banner painted with a representation of Our Lady and many soldiers of
the Mexican War of Independence in
1810 fought with printed cards of
her image stuck in their sombreros.
Although anti-clericism ran deep among many in the 20th Century Mexican Revolution, Emilio Zapata’s army of southern presents and Indians entered
Mexico City in triumph behind a Guadeloupian banner. More recently, the contemporary Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) also in the south named their mobile city Guadalupe Tepeyac in honor of the Virgin.
In the United States banners of Our Lady appeared in the marches and
during the strikes of the United Farm
Workers, whose leader Cesar Chavez
was deeply religious. More recently it
has been carried in demonstrations
in support of immigration reform.
Ordinarily there would have been an all-night vigil in Des Plaines, Illinois at the Shrine
of Our Lady of Guadalupe. More than 200,000
regularly visited the Shrine over two days for the largest such veneration in the U. S. But this year Illinois Coronavirus mitigation rules caused the cancelation of the beloved pilgrimage. Fearing that huge crowd would gather anyway
the Archdiocese of Chicago took the
extraordinary step of removing the sacred image of the Blessed Virgin Mary for
the first time ever from the outdoor
grotto for safekeeping and to
discourage crowds from gathering. Many
turned out anyway in a persistent cold
rain. In lieu of the public
veneration the Shrine is offering live
streams of masses and prayers at www.solg.org for anyone wanting
to participate from the comfort of their own home.
Today we celebrate with Le
Canta a la Virgen de Guadalupe performed by beloved Mexican Ranchera music star Beatriz Adriana known as Diva
de Divas. The Tijuana born singer suffered an unimaginable loss in 2000 when her son Leonardo Martínez was murdered by kidnappers. Fearing for
the life of her surviving daughter Betty,
she moved to the United States.
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