“Many primitive peoples have practiced occasional human sacrifice…. None has ever done so on a scale remotely approaching that of the Aztecs…. Early Mexican historian Ixtlilxóchitl estimated that one in every five children was sacrificed.”
Dr. Warren Carroll, Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Conquest of Darkness pg 8
From a Trickle to a Flood – the Spread of the Gospel in Mexico
Franciscan missionaries arrived in Mexico in 1524, walking barefoot across mountains and desert from Veracruz to Mexico City. Among the first to be baptized was a 50 year-old native Aztec, a simple man who took the name Juan Diego. The brutal and macabre Aztec religious rituals had only recently ended, and cultural barriers (along with the corruption and cruelty of some Spanish officials) made it difficult for the Franciscans to preach the Gospel effectively. The priests and lay missionaries worked to become fluent in the Nahuatl language. They set up schools, immersed themselves in the culture and dialects of the native people, and planted the seeds that they expected would take many generations to come to full fruition. They gained a trickle of converts over the next few years. A series of events then opened the floodgates, after which millions flocked to the missionaries seeking Baptism.
The Apparitions
On December 9, 1531, 57 year-old Juan Diego was walking to daily Mass over Tepeyac Hill when he heard music and saw a brilliant white cloud from which a beautiful native woman emerged. She told him:
“I am your merciful mother… the mother of those who cry to me, of those who seek me, of those who have confidence in me. Here I will hear their weeping, their sorrow, and will remedy and alleviate their suffering, necessities, and misfortune.… Go to the house of the Bishop and tell him that I sent you, and that it is my desire to have a sanctuary built here.”
The Bishop listened with interest but dismissed him, inviting Juan Diego to come again another time. Juan returned to the hill and found the luminous lady waiting for him. He asked her to send someone else. “I am only a poor man. I am not worthy of being there where you send me. Pardon me, my Queen. I do not want to make your noble heart sad.” She told him he was her chosen messenger, and asked him to try again the next day. After some difficulty gaining admittance, he once again gave the bishop the message. Intrigued, the bishop asked for some proof that what he told him was true. At sunset, Juan Diego again met the lady at the top of the hill, who assured him she would give him the sign the bishop asked for the next day.
Juan Diego was caring for his sick uncle and was unable to keep the appointment. As he hurried to fetch a priest to anoint the dying man on December 12, 1531, Juan avoided Tepeyac Hill, ashamed for disappointing the lady. She came down the hill and intercepted him. After explaining why he did not come and where he was going, she told him:
“Do not let your heart be dismayed, however great the illness you speak of. Am I not here? I, who am your Mother, and is not my help a refuge? Am I not of your kind? Be assured your uncle is already well.“
She then told Juan Diego to climb the hill and pluck the flowers he found growing there. Dr. Warren Carroll continues the narrative:
The hill was a desert place where only cactus, thistles, and thornbrush grew. Juan Diego had never seen a flower there. But when he reached the top, it was covered with beautiful Castilian roses, touched with dew, of exquisite fragrance. Mary took them from him as he gathered them, arranged them with her own hands, and put them in his cloak, or tilma, made of the fiber of the maguey cactus, and tied a knot in it behind his neck to hold the roses in place. (We are vividly reminded, in visualizing this… of a mother helping a little son into his fine clothes.
She told him to take the roses as a sign to the bishop. Juan Diego was kept waiting a long time, but when finally admitted the humble man told the story and opened his cloak. The roses tumbled to the floor, and the bishop dropped to his knees in awe and wonder. Imprinted on the tilma was a portrait of Our Lady in native dress, hands folded in prayer for her children of the New World. You can still look upon this miraculous cloak, the fibers of which should have disintegrated within 20 years, almost 500 years later.
The Tilma
Within two weeks, a small chapel had been built as the Lady had instructed, and the tilma was hung as a testament to the love of a mother for her children. Nine million came to faith within eight years. The tilma was moved to a larger church in 1622, enclosed behind glass in 1647, moved to a yet-larger church in 1709, and mounted in the current shrine in 1976. The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe is the most visited Catholic site in the world, drawing 20 million pilgrims annually.
Our earthy mother Mary Ann enjoyed going to new places and made a pilgrimage to Mexico when she was a young mother herself. She once shared that the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe was her favorite place in the whole world and was deeply touched after viewing the tilma. She had a special devotion to Our Lady throughout her life. I did not, but through her witness, I too have come to embrace the Virgin Mary as my mother, especially in the person of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It is my intention to make my own pilgrimage in the next few years.
Our Lady of the Americas
It is fitting that the merciful Mother of God – with compassion and understanding – had come to a place that had so recently been brutally sacrificing its children to the demands of the culture. She herself knew the sorrows of watching a beloved Son being brutally offered up. If we reflect upon it, in different but no less tragic ways we continue to offer up our children to the demands of the dominant culture in the name of sexual freedom and reproductive choice. Five hundred years later, Mary is still “the mother of those who cry to me, of those who seek me, of those who have confidence in me. Here I will hear their weeping, their sorrow, and will remedy an alleviate their suffering, necessities, and misfortune.”
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Pray for us.
CONTINUED IN The Miraculous Tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Further Reading:
Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Conquest of Darkness by Warren H. Carroll, Christendom Press, Front Royal VA, 1983
Guadalupe Mysteries, Deciphering the Code by Grzegorz Górny and Janusz Rosikon, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2016
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