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
flowers, 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 tint 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 in 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. However, despite
being centuries old on an unstable medium that central image
remains remarkably bright.
Aside from its singular religious
significance the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe became a rallying point
for the national aspirations of the Mexican people, particularly for the
Indios and mestizos. The peon army of Father 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 and against the Federal
detention of refugees and asylum seekers.
As I type these final sentences in
the wee small hours of the morning an all-night vigil continues in Des Plaines at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Last year the pilgrimage was canceled
due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
This year more than 200,000 are expected to visit the Shrine over two
days for the largest such veneration in the U.S.
Today we celebrate with Le Canta a la Virgen de Guadalupe performed
by beloved Mexican Ranchera music star Beatriz Adriana known as the 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment