Genesis 3:15 I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.
[3:15] She shall crush: Ipsa, the woman; so divers of the fathers read this place, conformably to the Latin: others read it ipsum, viz., the seed. The sense is the same: for it is by her seed, Jesus Christ, that the woman crushes the serpent’s head.
[3:15] She shall crush: Ipsa, the woman; so divers of the fathers read this place, conformably to the Latin: others read it ipsum, viz., the seed. The sense is the same: for it is by her seed, Jesus Christ, that the woman crushes the serpent’s head.
Excerpt from: A WOMAN CLOTHED WITH THE SUN
EDITED BY JOHN J. DELANEY
OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE IN MEXICO
ETHEL COOK ELIOT
“Not such His dealings with any other nation.”
Psalm 147
IT happened on the arid top of a 130-foot hillock in wasteland five miles north of Mexico City, then confined to its original island in a lake. The date was Saturday, December 9, 1531; the hour, daybreak. Only one person witnessed it, however, and his account of the prodigy – until it was verified, four days later – was not believed.
Pagan Aztecs worshipers of the Sun God. Stills from the Mel Gibson’s film Apocalypto
It happened to a poor-as-poverty Aztec Indian. Born into the servant caste fifty-seven years earlier and given the Nahuatl name Singing Eagle, he had survived in obscurity the Spanish conquest of 1519 – 21. Until the truth of his strange tale had been sealed with a visible, durable sign, he had been of no account to anyone in this world except his no-account friends and family. When he did become of immense account to millions, almost overnight (and without benefit of radio or television), his wife had been dead for several years and they had had no children. His one remaining relative was an uncle – an uncle who had been his foster father since early childhood. Uncle and nephew had been among the first Indians to be converted to Christianity by the Franciscan missionaries, who baptized them with the names they had gone by for the past seven years – Juan Bernardino and Juan Diego.
The landing of Spanish Catholics in Mexican shore led by Hernan Cortes. Stills from Apocalypto
Juan Diego was devoted to his old uncle, but their relationship was by this time turned about: Juan Diego was watching over the old man with as much care as he had received from him fifty years ago. They lived near each other, but alone, in Tolpetlac, a village of one-room houses thatched with cornstalks. In spite of the task of growing corn and beans for them both, and hiring himself out for any other labor he could get, Juan Diego managed to see his uncle and be of help to him at some time every day. But this Saturday, December 9, was unprecedented. Juan Bernardino had no sight of his nephew all that day.
The Conquest of Mexico led by Hernan Cortes
Juan Diego had left the village before daybreak in order to be in time to hear the Mass celebrated in Our Lady’s honor (as the Franciscans then did on Saturdays) at the church of Santiago in the village of Tlaltelolco. It was a long run over the hills, and the Fathers stressed the importance of never coming to a Mass late, and called the roll of their converts before beginning. Running through the high, rare air in the hardy Indian manner, he would have arrived at the same hour as any other morning if he hadn’t been halted in his tracks by what he took for a burst of bird song. This was unheard-of, at this time of year, with everything so bleak and cold. Even at the appropriate season, Juan had never before heard birds welcome the dawn with an abrupt burst into song all together. The music was thrillingly sharp, and thrillingly sweet. As it went on, Juan’s ear discerned what seemed a harmony among separate choirs of song birds scattered over the scrubby sides of a little hill that his path skirted. On this hill, Tepeyac, had formerly stood a temple to the Mother-goddess of the Aztecs. Now it was desert.
Quite soon the shrill caroling stopped as suddenly as it had begun, with no lingering twitters. Such a silence with no breath of warning unnerved Juan. He didn’t resume running. He stood listening to the silence, straining for some sound, any sound to break the spell. It came almost at once, but it was as astounding in that place and at that time as the bird music had been. A woman was calling down to him from the ruinous rocks at the top of Tepeyac hill. Though day had broken, Juan couldn’t see her. A frosty mist, a brightening cloud hid the rocks and the woman who was calling. She was calling him by name, and urgently: “Juan! Juan Diego! Juanito! Juan Dieguitol”
Whoever she was, he must go up to her and find out what she wanted of him. It was a short climb to the top, but he got no sight of her until he reached the rocks, and then he saw her more completely than he had ever seen anything else in his life. He saw what he looked at, whole and at the same time in the minutest detail.
The sun wasn’t above the horizon, yet Juan saw her as if against the sun because of the golden beams that rayed her person from head to feet. She was a young Mexican girl about fourteen years old and wonderfully beautiful. Her garments were wonderfully beautiful. The rocks and dry grasses and stunted thorn trees were wonderfully beautiful, as if her splendor radiated onto them. The cactus leaves gleamed like emeralds, and their spines like gold. Each plant, each stone was sharply etched on Juan’s vision, transparent and jewel-like in color. But Juan was not dazzled by the radiance before him and all around him. It was just the opposite. He saw it all with heightened powers of vision, and when the girl finally spoke, he heard with the same heightened power of hearing every most delicate inflection and emphasis of his mother tongue. “Nopiltzin, campa tiauh?”
The girl said: “Juan, smallest and dearest of my little children, where were you going?”
Juan said: “My lady and my child1; I was hurrying to Tlaltelolco to see the Mass and hear the Gospel explained.”
(1 This “child,” and the other diminutives used by Juan at later meetings, appears in the oldest account. Probably Aztecs of Juan’s servant caste habitually used them toward their superiors; but we may also remember that the Virgin looked young enough to be Juan’s granddaughter.)
The girl said: “Dear little son, I love you. I want you to know who I am. I am the ever-virgin Mary, Mother of the true God who gives life and maintains it in existence. He created all things. He is in all places. He is lord of heaven and earth. I desire a teocali (temple or church) at this place where I will show my compassion to your people and to all people who sincerely ask my help in their work and in their sorrows. Here, I will see their tears; I will console them and they will be at ease. So run now to Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) and tell the Lord Bishop all that you have seen and heard.”
Juan Diego meets the Blessed Virgin Mary
Juan had fallen to his knees when the Virgin told him who she was. Now he prostrated himself at her feet and said, “Noble Lady, I will do what you ask of me!” Then he quickly rose and took courteous and humble leave of her.
This was no light service. If anyone else, no matter how exalted a person, had directed Juan Diego to take a message to the Bishop in the city and deliver it to him personally, Juan would have made every excuse possible to get out of it. The five-mile run to the city was no great matter. He was fifty-seven years old and fasting since yesterday’s sunset, but his body was agile and toughened from early childhood. Indians of Juan’s low degree, however, seldom went into Mexico City, and Juan had never had the temerity to do so, even before the Spanish conquest. The Spaniards in Tlaltelolco were different. Even the Indians who held fast to their forefathers’ beliefs – and these were still the vast majority – didn’t think of the Franciscan missionaries as their conquerors. They and their converts together had built the church there and a school and a many-roomed house for themselves. To even the humblest, they seemed fellow men – poor, roughly clothed in brown tunics, hard-working, meagerly fed, and serenely gentle. So Juan felt as easy in Tlaltelolco as he did in Tolpetlac. But Tenochtitlan! And even if the Spanish hidalgos and soldiers he would run into there didn’t set their dogs on him or beat him, how was he to find his way to the Bishop’s house? He was badly frightened.
However much trouble Juan may have gone through before he arrived at the door of the palace, he did manage it, was admitted inside, and after some rough treatment from the servants that just fell short of injury to his person, and being kept waiting in a corner for a very long time, he found himself at last in the episcopal presence.
The Bishop-elect (not yet consecrated) was Don Fray Juan de Zurnarraga, a Franciscan who, in Spain, had distributed a royal gift to his community among poor laymen, thus winning the king’s notice and the papal appointment. In Mexico since 1528, he had greatly softened the conquerors’ harshness to the Indians. It was not he who had kept Juan waiting all those hours; he had only now been told that a lowly native from the country was there with a message for his ear alone, and would let no one else relay it.
The Lord Bishop was courteous and kind in his reception of Juan Diego. (It is hardly probable that the Aztec could speak enough Spanish to convey Our Lady’s message, but the Bishop kept an interpreter, Juan Gonzalez, who had come to Mexico with Cortes, presently became a missionary, and in 1534 a priest.) Listening to the story, the Bishop was impressed by the Indian’s humility and seeming sincerity. He asked Juan a few questions – where he lived, his occupation, his knowledge of the Gospels, his religious practices – and he found Juan’s responses satisfactory. But the story of that encounter and dialogue with the Queen of Heaven, and how she desired a church built in that uninhabited place – he shook his head. He ended the interview by saying he would think it over. Juan could come again, if he cared to, and they would talk further about it.
The sun was almost set when Juan came back to the hill where he had heard the strange bird choirs and seen the radiant little Virgin. Tired and very hungry as he must have been by this time, he swerved from the path and climbed to the spot. Though he had sadly failed the Mother of God in the matter of her new temple, holy ground was holy ground. He must do it reverence.
When he reached the top, the Blessed Virgin was there, waiting for him as if it had been arranged between them. Juan knelt down. He said: “My dearest child, my Lady and Queen, I did your errand. I told the Bishop all that I had seen and heard here. He listened, and asked many questions; but I could see he did not believe that everything was just as I said it was. He thought I could be mistaken about your wanting a church in this waste place, and even about who it was I had seen and spoken with here. He gave me kind permission to visit him again, but I fear I should get no further. I am not worthy of your trusting me with a message so important. Please send someone more suitable; for I am a nobody…. Forgive my boldness in advising you.”
The Blessed Virgin said: “Listen, little son. There are many I could send. But you are the one I have chosen for this task. So, tomorrow morning, go back to the Bishop. Tell him it is the Virgin Mary who sends you, and repeat to him my great desire for a church in this place.”
Juan said: “I will do so Willingly, though I fear the Bishop may not be pleased to see me back so soon. And if he is pleased, he still may not believe that it was really you who sent me. But I am your servant and will obey your every wish. Tomorrow I will return here to tell you how my second try comes out. So, youngest of my daughters, Noble Lady, rest yourself until then.”
The next morning, Sunday, Juan rose in the dark and got to the church in TIaltelolco in time for Mass. Directly Mass was over, he went on into Mexico City to confront the Bishop a second time. The palace servants had perhaps been rebuked, for they let him in with almost no ado, and one of them went promptly off to announce him.
Fray Juan de Zumarraga was astonished and possibly annoyed. It was true he had told the visionary Indian to come again, if he wished, at some later date, but that he was here the very next day and so early in the morning – that seemed hysterical or, at the least, childish. Busy as he was, however, the Bishop received him with outward patience and listened to his tale of a second meeting with the Blessed Virgin, up where the rocks were, on little Tepeyac.
Juan related how, much to his surprise, the Queen of angels and men had waited all yesterday in that lonely place to learn what the Bishop meant to do about the church she wanted built there. But when he, poor Juan Diego, had the boldness to inform her that the Bishop seemed uncertain it was she herself who had sent the message, she had not shown dismay. She had simply said that Juan should return this morning and assure the Bishop it was she herself – the ever-Virgin – and that she did desire a building in that place.
The Bishop was thoughtful. He was beginning almost to believe that this simple Indian might not be deluded. But there are visions and visions; some are heavenly, some are not, no matter how much they assume the disguise of holiness. He no longer wondered whether this earnest convert had perhaps made up the story for vanity’s sake or to gain something practical for himself, such as having a church built nearer his own village for his better convenience in getting to Mass. Even with ulterior motives for fabricating his meetings with Nuestra Senora, this poor Indian was far too simple for so impressive a performance. Moreover, everything about the story was so circumstantial! No matter how closely the man was questioned or asked to repeat any part of description or dialogue, he never contradicted himself. Rather, it seemed as if the questions brought to his mind such trivial Points as he would not think of inventing. Still, there was nothing, as yet, that Bishop Zumarraga could act on. Some proof that Juan, however truthful, was not suffering deception or delusion, was indispensable – but what sort of proof?
In the end the Bishop rather tentatively suggested that Juan might ask Santa Maria for a sign that would prove it was truly herself. Juan was going right back to her on the little hill . . . ? Very well—
But before dismissing Juan, the Bishop left the room for a few moments to instruct two of his most trusted servants to follow the Indian home. They were to keep far enough behind him not to let him realize he was being followed; to notice very carefully any persons he stopped to speak with; and to watch him until he reached his village, no matter how far away that was.
These two servants returned with their report much sooner than the Bishop had expected them. The distressing thing was that the Indian had outwitted them, or that was the excuse they offered. Passing through the city, he spoke to no one nor did anyone so much as greet him. Outside the city, he quickened his pace, but they kept him in sight. He was on the road ahead of them until he reached the foot of a little hill about five miles out. At that point he simply vanished. They searched the whole vicinity, but he was too cleverly hidden; they couldn’t find him.
But Juan had not outwitted anyone, nor been clever at hiding. He had not been aware that he was under surveillance. He could see the top of the Virgin’s hill. He could be seen from it. That was his goal, and his only thought the thought of who was watching for him up there among the rocks.
Again Juan knelt at the feet of holy Mary and told her how the Bishop had asked for a sign. This did not discompose her; in fact, she appeared pleased. She said: “Very well, little son. Come back tomorrow at daybreak. I will give you a sign for him. You have taken much trouble on my account, and I shall reward you for it. Go in peace, and rest.”
But the next thing was for Juan to visit his uncle, and it was well he did. The old man had been stricken with cocolistle, a contagious and deadly fever that Juan recognized only too well. He gathered herbs and prepared medicines. He kept up his own strength with food. Through that night and the day and night following, he did everything that was humanly possible to relieve Juan Bernardino’s sufferings. He did not keep his appointment with the Virgin that Monday morning, but gave precedence to his uncle’s need.
Sometime before daybreak on Tuesday, Juan Bernardino took a turn for the worse. He felt certain that he would not live to see the sun set that day, and begged his nephew to run to Tlaltelolco and return with a priest. The only service Juan could render him now, and the last one in this world, was to arrange that he should not die without receiving the Last Sacraments. No matter how lonely and uncared – for Juan left his dear foster father, this duty came first for them both.
This time on his run to Tlaltelolco, Juan chose to go round the east side of Tepeyac hill. It was on the west side that the Blessed Virgin had first seen him and called him up to her. If she were there now she would see him again, for day was just breaking. She might call him again. This would mean delay, when every moment was precious.
But it didn’t work. He was hardly started on the eastern path when he saw her descending Tepeyac at an angle that would intercept him just beyond the next curve. He couldn’t turn back. She must have seen him, and would be astonished if he were so discourteous as to avoid the meeting. He did not slow his pace until he was near enough to kneel at her feet.
She said: “Least of my sons, what is the matter?”
And as if to make light of his embarrassment he answered at first: “My dear child, my Lady! Why are you up so early? Are you well?” But then (and how breathless the words must have sounded), “Forgive me! My uncle is dying of cocolistle and desires me to fetch a priest to give him the Last Sacraments. It was no heedless promise I made to meet you yesterday morning and take the Bishop the sign you intended to send him. But my uncle fell ill.”
The Blessed Virgin said: “My little son. Do not be distressed and afraid. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Your uncle will not die at this time. This very moment his health is restored. There is no reason now for the errand you set out on, and you can peacefully attend to mine. Go up to the top of the hill; cut the flowers that are growing there and bring them to me.”
No flowers could be in bloom on the frozen hill. Nor could Juan’s uncle be healed of his wasting sickness and be, all in one moment, perfectly well. But Juan did not question the Blessed Virgin’s words. Nor was it blind faith that made him believe. He was seeing her, hearing her voice.
The Blessed Virgin Mary arranges the Castilian roses which are not indigenous in Mexico in the tilma of Juan Diego
Castilian roses – exotic, impossible – were growing on the hilltop. Juan noticed as he cut them that their petals were drenched with dew, not rimed with frost as the scrub and mesquites were. The best way to protect them against the cold was to cradle them in his tilma – a regular Aztec garment like a long cape worn in front, and often looped up as a carryall. Not to tire the Blessed Virgin with further waiting, Juan worked quickly, filling his tilma with the fresh, fragrant blossoms. Then he ran down and, bending low before her, held out the slightly opened wrap for her to see that this time, anyway, he had been successful in fulfilling her desire. But he had dropped the flowers helter-skelter into the fold, and the Virgin was not satisfied. With her own holy hands she rearranged them carefully, taking thought over every rose as to just how it should lie. Then she tied the lower corners of his tilma behind his neck, so that nothing could spill.
When she was done she said, “You see, little son, this is the sign I am sending to the Bishop. Tell him that now he has his sign, he should build the temple I desire in this place. Do not let anyone but him see what you are carrying. Hold both sides until you are in his presence and have already told him how I intercepted you on your way to fetch a priest to give the Last Sacraments to your uncle, how I assured you he was perfectly healed and sent you up to cut these roses, and myself arranged them like this. Remember, little son, that you are my trusted ambassador, and this time the Bishop will believe all that you tell him.”
As far as is known, this was the last time here on earth that Juan Diego ever saw the Virgin or heard her voice.
All the way to the Bishop’s palace Juan delighted in the perfume of the roses. He held his tilma tightly closed, but their fragrance penetrated the coarse weave and scented the winter air he ran through. The palace servants when Juan gained admittance were astonished by the sweet odor that entered along with the beggarly Indian. They traced it to what he was so craftily hiding from them in his uncouth apron. When Juan refused to let them see, or tell them anything, they jostled and startled him in hope to loosen his grip enough for a glimpse. They succeeded, but could hardly believe their eyes. Some snatched at the flowers, but each time a rose was touched it no longer seemed real but rather an embroidery or painting on the cream-colored cloth. Word of the commotion soon reached the Bishop, and Juan was fetched away to his apartment.
This time several of the Bishop’s households were present. Perhaps he had summoned them to give their various opinions of this vision-seeing Indian.
Juan unhaltingly advanced and stood before the episcopal chair. Lest he loose his clutch on the sides of his tilma, he dared not kneel down as courtesy demanded. So he stood all the minutes it took to tell what the Blessed Virgin had urgently requested he should tell and in the right order. He added nothing and left out nothing. Sentence by sentence, Juan Gonzalez interpreted. Then Juan Diego put up both hands and untied the corners of crude cloth behind his neck. The looped-up fold of the tilmafell; the flowers he thought were the precious sign tumbled out and lay in an untidy heap on the floor. Alas for the Virgin’s careful arrangement!
Juan Diego Unveiled The Sign of Our Lady and a More Startling Surprise
But Juan’s confusion over this mishap was nothing to what he felt immediately after it. Inside of seconds the Bishop had risen from his chair and was kneeling at Juan’s feet, and inside of a minute all the other persons in the room had surged forward and were also kneeling. Juan would have thought they were praying except that he himself seemed the object of their rapt gazes. But no, it was his tilma, that now hung down to his ankles.
The Miraculous Image of Our Lady Venerated by the Bishop and the Clergy
No wonder the Bishop and his household were kneeling before that length of primitive cloth. Millions of people have knelt before it since, in awe and gratitude as profound as theirs who saw it first. The miracle of the roses was sign enough of the authenticity of the Indian’s visions, but the Blessed Virgin had trusted him with an even more wonderful sign. What she had imprinted on his vision and memory at the time of the first apparition, now – three days later – was imaged in glorious beauty on the front of his tilma.
The Miraculous Imprint of the Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the tilma (coarse sack) of Juan Diego
However long the Bishop and the others with him knelt in reverent awe before this first showing of the miraculous picture, the moment came when he rose, gently untied the tilma of the astounded Indian, lifted it from him, and carried it with all reverence into his private chapel. There, after it was appropriately attached to a wall near the altar, Juan himself could kneel with the others in prolonged and prayerful wonder.
Juan was willing to remain in the palace for the rest of that day and the night following. He had no anxiety about his uncle’s health, and the Bishop requested his continued presence. Meanwhile, the news spread. Early Wednesday morning Juan’s humble tilma, glorified by the supernatural image imprinted on it, was carried in solemn and joyous procession to the cathedral, where everyone in the city thronged to see it and pray before it.
The next thing was for Juan to show to the Bishop and those he asked to accompany them the sacred hill where the Blessed Virgin desired a church to be built. After viewing the holy ground – bleak now and with no traces of the glory that had so recently blessed it – the Bishop gave Juan permission to return to his village. He himself would waste no time about constructing at least a shrine on Tepeyac, but some of his company could go with the Indian to see how his uncle fared, and if he was well enough they were to bring him back with Juan to Mexico City.
Juan Bernardino was sunning himself at his door when his nephew arrived, and was astonished by his escort of friars and caballeros. He wasn’t in custody; he was showing them the way. Rapidly the villagers were closing in around them, forgetting timidity in their eagerness to see and hear Juan Diego’s amazement at finding his uncle alive and well. All yesterday they had looked for his return with a priest. By last night they felt sure he had himself come down with the dread cocolistle. Now today he appeared with a whole troop of Fathers and hidalgos!
Dying Juan Bernardino Visited By Our Lady and was revived
Encircled by the fascinated audience, uncle and nephew were embracing. Juan Diego was eager to give his uncle the joyous explanation of his long absence, but in courtesy he first inquired how he felt now; and the old man had his own marvels of yesterday morning to relate. Too weak even to drink the concoction of herbs his nephew had left at his side, he longed for daylight and spiritual comfort, yet had no hope of living until either could arrive. Darkness encompassed him, when of a sudden the room filled with soft light. A luminous young woman, all made of peace and love, stood beside him. She told him he would get well, and he believed her. She told him she had intercepted his nephew and sent him to the Bishop with a picture of herself to be enshrined at Tepeyac. She further told him, “Call me and call my image Santa Marla de Guadalupe.” Then she disappeared, and dawn stole in.
Genesis 3:15 I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.
(Now Guadalupe – the “river of the wolf” in Saracenic Spain – had given its name to a little statue of Madonna and Child which a cowherd found buried near it, toward the end of the thirteenth century when the Moors had been expelled from Estremadura. King Alfonso XI enshrined it in a chapel. Columbus prayed there before his voyage and named one of the Antilles he discovered “Guadalupe.” To the Spaniards in Mexico the name seemed natural. Applying it to the Indian Virgin made them feel at home in New Spain. But to the natives it could have no appeal. They could not even pronounce it, for neither G nor D (nor R) is used in Nahuatl. “Santa Malia,” as they pronounced Maria, was familiar to them, especially to converts like Juan Bernardino, but instead of “de Guadalupe” some other, more intelligible, syllables must have been spoken to him by the Apparition. Recent research, especially that of Helen Behrens, strongly suggests that these were tetlcoatlaxopeuh, which when repeated by Juan Bernardino to the Spaniards were heard as “de Guatlashupe,” easily assimilated by their ears to the Old World title. Of course they supposed the old Indian was doing his best to say “de Guadalupe”! But to all Aztec ears the compound epithet meant Stone Serpent Troddenon: the Apparition had announced that she had suppressed and supplanted Quetzalcoatl, the terrible god (originally perhaps a comet, later the planet nearest earth) idolized as a feathered serpent, to whom countless men had been excruciatingly sacrificed. What wonder that as the word spread among the Indians of this title given to herself by the vision of Juan Bernardino and the promise made by the identical vision to Juan Diego (“I will give motherly love and compassion to all who seek my aid”), plus the actual picture in which they could read many concurrent symbols—clouds, sun, stars, crescent, and the little black cross on a golden brooch – the natives swarmed to embrace the Christian religion in which one divine man had been sacrificed once and for all. The Mother of this God had come to them directly and told them in their own tongue that she had trodden on the serpent’s head.
In the seven years 1532-38, eight million natives were baptized. Friar Toribio de Benavente recorded that in five days, 14,500 presented themselves at his mission and were anointed with oil and chrism. Learning of the sacrament of matrimony, 1000 couples were married in one day. For Easter, 1540, twelve different tribes peacefully assembled at one church, some from as far away as 150 miles. Today over five million people come annually to Guadalupe, and the descendants of the Aztecs, dancing, hail “Teotl Inantzin” (God’s Mother) by her title, “Coatlalupej,’ and sing how “She freed us from great evil, She crushed the serpent!”)
This, to Juan Bernardino, was the fifth apparition of our Holy Mother on the American continent – a delicate kindness shown to her Juanito’s foster father. Through him she made known to Spaniard and to Aztec the significant name by which her image was to unify them in Christendom.
Juan Bernardino got up and went about his chores, serene and well. Not until this morning had he begun to worry over his nephew’s long absence. What, now, had kept him, and why were all these white men so respectful? Never had he seen such a novelty-not in his lifetime. It nearly overwhelmed him when he was placed upon a litter, and four young men of Tolpetlac were hired to bear him to the Bishop’s palace. To the City in the Lake! For a fortnight’s visit!
Swiftly news of the church to be built in the precinct of the Mother-goddess on Tepeyac was carried from village to village. The Indians’ own church, requested through one of themselves! Volunteer laborers appeared, more than could be employed. In only thirteen days the simple chapel-like structure was completed. On the day after Christmas the sacred Image was brought to it in a great procession and installed above the altar; the church was blessed and the Mass celebrated.
Here ends the earliest account (c.1560) of these miracles, written in Nahuatl by an Aztec of the former imperial family who was educated at Tlaltelolco and attained very high office under the name of Don Antonio Valeriano (died 1605). But recently there came to light a much older, actually contemporary document that had lain among the Archives of the Indies in Seville, Spain. This is a letter to the conqueror Cortes, written by Bishop Zumarraga on Christmas Eve, 1531. It presupposes Cortes’ acquaintance with recent events and is not explicit, but it is imbued with exaltation.
“I have had the news published – sent a messenger to Cuernavaca – an Indian to Fray Toribio–am preparing the festival and keeping with me a little longer your honor’s trumpeters. How glorious it will be! The joy of all is indescribable. Tell my lady the Marquesa [Cortes’ wife] that eventually I want to dedicate my cathedral to the Immaculate Conception because it was during that feast [December 8-17 in the missal used in Mexico] that God and his Blessed Mother deigned to shower the land you won with this great favor. No more now.”
The Bishop Elect, filled with joy.
Cortes and his marquesa took part in the procession. Everybody walked in it. But the Indians danced too, and one in his frenzy was grievously wounded by an arrow – head piercing his neck. Unconscious, he was laid before the Image, and amid fervent prayers a friar staunched his wound. His eyes opened. He beheld the Image. He revived. He lived. And the Aztec hymns rose louder than before. “The chiefs sing to thee, Santa Maria, the people dance before thee. Speak, Father Bishop, to us thy children, newborn beside the lake.”
While the millions of baptisms were taking place, Juan Diego spent his days in a hermitage built for him beside the little chapel on the holy hill. To pilgrims he showed the sacred picture and repeated the story. At a time when the laity was not accustomed to frequent communion, he, by special order of the Bishop, received his Savior three times a week. When he died in 1548, his room, appropriately, became the baptistry of “the old church of the Indians,” and on one wall of it a tablet proclaimed, “In this place Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to an Indian named Juan Diego who is buried in this church.” Juan Bernardino, too, was reverenced, and after he died in 1544 his hut in Tolpetlac became a chapel that still stands, in good repair. In 1545 a cruel pestilence abated when the small children of the countryside were brought together before the Virgin’s picture and appealed to her.
Not quite a century after the miracles of 1531, Mexico City was badly flooded during four years of unusual rain. In a convent there an Indian lay sister had a vision of the Virgin as portrayed on thetilma, propping up the threatened walls. Accordingly, the Archbishop with a rich flotilla of boats, lights, and music fetched the precious Image from Tepeyac to its “birthplace” in his palace, and kept it in the capital till the floods subsided. In 1663 it left the original shrine for a stately, towered temple built for it close by, where it was kept locked in a silver tabernacle and behind curtains except during Mass or when responsible persons were present. Only forty-six years later (1709) it was installed in its present place, around which a complex of buildings grew. Eventually, in 1904, the great, domed church was declared a basilica; and since its interior was done over in 1931 it has been considered the most beautiful church in the Western Hemisphere.
Above the high altar is Juan Diego’s tilma – still intact. Two straight pieces, coarsely woven of fiber from the maguey plant, are sewn together so that the whole measures 66 inches by 41 inches. In color it looks rather like unbleached linen. Modern scientists are agreed that in the Mexican climate this cloth would naturally have disintegrated beyond recognition within twenty years. On its fishnet-like web no painting could ever have been done; and even on a properly prepared canvas the picture would within two hundred years have been browned over to the point of obliteration. What colors, what gilt were employed is still a mystery. The technique has eluded and still eludes all endeavors to elucidate it.
The figure is only 56 inches tall, but as one draws back from it, it seems to become larger and more plastic. Surrounded by golden rays, it emerges as from a shell of light, clear-cut and lovely in every detail of line and color. The head is bent slightly and very gracefully to the right, just avoiding the long seam. The eyes look downward, but the pupils are visible. This gives an unearthly impression of lovingness and lovableness. The mantle that covers the head and falls to the feet is greenish blue with a border of purest gold, and scattered through with golden stars. The tunic is rose-colored, patterned with a lacelike design of golden flowers. Below is a crescent moon, and beneath it appear the head and arms of a cherub. Although he is tiny in size, he seems to be balancing the image above him with joyous ease.
The seer saw the Blessed Virgin as a person of his own race, and was firm in this conviction. Her physiognomy in the painting bears him out, as also do her garments. Her star-studded outer mantle resembles that of an Aztec queen. In so appearing she showed herself a mother to him and to his people in a most especial way; but the picture’s expression is archetypical of adorable motherhood in every race of man.
As recently as 1921 the Image was preserved as if by Our Lady’s special watchfulness from the persecutors of the Church who then ran the Mexican government. They did not dare to close the basilica, so beloved by the Indian masses, but someone hid a bomb in a bunch of flowers at the altar, timed to explode at the climax of a pontifical high Mass. Most of the hierarchy, as well as the Image, would be within its range. The bomb went off, shattering an altarpiece and twisting a big bronze cross, but not a man was hurt and the glass in front of the Image did not even crack.
The frames surrounding the sacred picture and the various jeweled crowns above it are brilliant with earthly splendor. But the splendor of the Image is not of this earth, not of man’s making. The eyes that gaze on it now see it exactly as Bishop Zumarraga and the others saw it when the roses spilled from Juan’s mantle and it was first revealed. Millions have viewed it during the four and a quarter centuries since. At the present time, some fifteen hundred persons kneel before it on every ordinary day, and on days of pilgrimages (of which there are many, every year, from other countries) the numbers cannot be counted.
The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is the Patronal Festivity of Mexico and is also celebrated with solemnity in the Southwest of the United States. To all American Indians, we may suppose, the message applies as it was spoken: an end to strife and cruelty, a promise of solace, peace, maternal love. To all inhabitants of the Americas, the Image implies a unity of brothers, a union of races acknowledging the fatherhood of God. The Mother of the Incarnation of God made it and gave it to us all, to reaffirm and vivify the pivotal point of the Creed: that her Son was true God and true man, Redeemer and Savior.
We cannot know how long this Holy Image will remain, nor how long this earth of ours will endure, but the effect of Our Lady’s appearances and gift is continuous, and God may mean the Western Hemisphere to play a special part in these latter days by exemplifying, defending, and spreading His purposes for all mankind.
Source: splendorofthechurch.com.ph
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