A Christmas Card
from Mary
Does Contraception Minimize the Incidence of Abortion?
Secularism, Culture of Death Hothouse
What Religious
Liberty?
The Incredible Ever-Expanding Dead End
Anti-Cure, Anti-Life
Whose Values in
Education?
Toppling
Dominos
Anti-Christians
don't have to be Hypocrites but Many Volunteer
Intolerant Tolerance
The Emperor's
Clothes or a Cheap Tuxedo
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part I
The Myth of
Hitler's Pope, Part II
Embryonic
Stem Cell Research Again
The Madness of
Secularism
"Don't Impose Your
Religion on Me"
Dictatorship of Relativism
Two Babies at Christmas
Living Will or Death
Warrant?
Court Ordered
Slow Motion Torture-Death Sentence
Men in Black
A Lot of Hot Air
The Culture War
Battles
"Stay with us, Lord"
Secular-to-English Dictionary
Moral Guidance for
Catholics in this Election
Christians
Losing America
Stem Cell Wars
Catholic
Pro-Abortion Politicians and Communion
Useful Idiots
Who Killed Jesus?
A Primer on Gay
Marriage
Whose Side are You
on?
Vouchers Revisited
Real and Fake
Cloning Bans
Broken Compasses
No Room in the Inn
Killing Fields
Revisited
Gay but not Merry
Adam and Steve?
The Battle for the Court
Victimless Crimes
More Salt, Please
The Next Big Fight
When Religion
Becomes Evil
Virginity Making a Comeback?
You've Come a Long Way,
Baby
The Incarnational
Approach
The Many Meanings of ACLU
Things Your Media Never Told
You
A Nasty Little Secret
Two Points of View on the Birth of Jesus
You Gotta Kill Them. How Else
Are They Going To Learn?
Perplexing Christmas Questions
How Do You See Christ Today?
Now that there is Another Ewe, will there be
Another You?
What is Conscience Anyhow?
Divorce of Love and Life
What Counts as a Mass?
What is a Covenant?
I Wish I had Your Faith
Are there Too Many Decrees of
Nullity?
Dutch Treats
Ecumenism
Going from Baby Doe to Granny Doe
Comments of Evangelium Vitae
The Exception Corrupts the Rule
Good Morality or
Good Medicine
Generation-X'ers Smart in Every Way But
One
A Matter of Good Breeding
Herod and Pontius Pilate at the
Polls
Hitler's Pope or Righteous Gentile?
The Unknown God
What exactly is wrong with
homosexuality?
Ideology Trumps Science, Reality,
and Common Sense
What Exactly is an Indulgence?
Infallibility and Error in the Church
Pilate Asked, "What is Truth?"
The Truth about Families
New Killing Fields
Choice of Language and Language of
Choice
A Lexicon for Our Day
Why are there so many bodies?
Marijuana, Medicine or Menace?
Medical Research and Ethics
Meditation
"You Taught me well,
Mommie dearest"
Moral Fallout
Neutral on the Wrong
Side
"These are the
Nineties After All"
Many are Wed but Few
are Married
"...Prepare him for
additional obligations"
A Useful Lie
A Partridge in a
Pear Tree
Religious Persecution in
the U.S.?
What Makes a Person a
Person?
The Point of a Point of
View
Politically Correct,
Morally Depraved
Population
Controllers out of Control
Practical Dreamers
Social Progress
through Immorality
Shall we Do Evil for
Goodness Sake?
Reason and Faith
Resurrection Glory
Same Sex Marriages?
Pearl of Great Price
"I used to be
schizophrenic, but we're all right now"
Sexual Morality
Irrelevant in Judging Public Officials?
Undesirable Side Effects
Some News is Good News
SOSSLQ's, not POSSLQ's
Spoils of Splits
Why Attend Mass
Every Sunday?
Is it All Right to Pull
the Plug?
An Appeal for Intolerance
Topics Catechetical
A Voting Catechism
A Moral Guide to
Voting
Vouchers: Has Their Time Come?
What Child is This?
What did they die of?
You are the Man
You may be a liberal
if...
Get Rid of that Worthless
Relative
Planned Un-Parenthood
Weighing Pro-Life Issues
Prior to Voting
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by Monsignor James C. Brunner |
Faith Points |
A Christmas Card from Mary
Most Catholics are familiar with the story of how the Blessed Virgin appeared to Juan Diego and his uncle Juan Bernardino, converted to Christianity at the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. They know that Mary put into Juan Diego’s cloak some roses that grew even though it was winter and that on opening his cloak before the Bishop on it appeared the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Here are some other interesting facts about the image that they may not know.
Juan Diego and Juan Bernardino possessed no special social standing. Yet they had central roles in the conversion of Mexico. Juan Diego represented the bulk of the nation, the group to which Mary, the mother of God, wanted to address herself. Juan Bernardino was a community elder whose standing was presumably damaged by his conversion to Christianity. He represented the collective knowledge and identity of the indigenous community.
Mary called herself “Guadalupe” in her appearances, a name that was known to the Spaniards because of a Black Madonna found in the thirteenth century on the banks of the Guadalupe River. The Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Guadalupe was built in the Virgin’s honor. Mary’s choice of this name signified her mission to unite both the Spanish and the indigenous peoples of Mexico in one faith. That seemed impossible at the time principally because of the abusive treatment of the natives by the Spanish conquistadores.
Juan Diego’s Indian name was Cuauhtlatoatzin (eagle that speaks). In the Aztec culture the eagle played an important symbolic role. According to Aztec mythology in the fourteenth century the people migrated south to the valley of Mexico. An eagle sitting on a cactus marked the site of their future capital city, Tenochtitlan (place of the nopal cactus rock). The eagle was revered as a symbol of the sun god. At the Virgin’s behest Juan Diego, the eagle that speaks, is designated as the messenger of the beginning of a new civilization.
The apron-like cloak, called a tilma, on which Mary appears, was made of rough maguey cactus. Normally such a tilma would last no longer than a few decades particularly in the salty and humid climate of Tepeyac, but this one has lasted for 478 years, “something completely beyond scientific explanation” according to researcher and physicist Dr. Adolfo Orozco. The tilma was exposed for approximately 116 years without any kind of protection like a glass cover, receiving infrared and ultraviolet radiation from tens of thousands of candles near it.
The tilma survived two remarkable events that might have destroyed it. In 1875 a worker accidentally spilled a 50 percent nitric acid solvent on the right side of the cloth. Beyond any natural explanation the acid did not destroy the fabric; indeed it did not destroy the colored part of the image. The second event in 1921 during a period of anticlericalism was the explosion of a bomb deliberately concealed in a flower vase at the base of the image. The bomb blast broke marble floors and windows 150 meters distant but no damage was done to the image and its glass case.
Science is unable to explain the origin of the coloration of the image nor how it was painted. From a distance of 3-4 inches from the image one sees only the cactus fibers; the color disappears. The colors seem to float above the surface of the tilma. There are no vestiges of brush strokes or any other known painting technique.
The stars that appear on Mary’s mantle reflect the exact configuration and positions that could be seen in the sky of Mexico on the day the miracle occurred. On the right side parts of southern constellations have been identified: Ophiuchus, Libra, Scorpio, Lupus, Hydra, the Southern Cross, and Centaurus. On the left side of the mantle one sees the northern constellations: a fragment of the Herdsman, Great Bear (Big Dipper), Berenice’s Hair, Hunting Dogs, Thurban (the brightest star of the Draco constellation), part of Auriga and Taurus. Forty-six of the most brilliant stars in their proper places that can be seen on the horizon of the Valley of Mexico are identified.
An engineer, Jose Aste Tonsmann, magnified both the Virgin’s eyes about 1/3rd inch in size 2,500 times and found images of thirteen human figures. The figures are found in each eye. Apparently the figures are optically correct representations of the persons who first witnessed the image when Juan Diego opened his tilma. They could not have been painted by a human hand and are a forceful proof of an origin beyond nature.
The tilma is highly symbolic, much like an Aztec codex or document. The image itself depicts a detail from Revelation 12:1: “A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet.” The sun and the moon are no longer to be considered as gods but as objects under Mary’s governance.
The Virgin wears a black band at her waist, symbolizing pregnancy. She wanted her Son to be born in the three Americas, in the heart of each American.
The clouds around her would have elicited respect from the Aztecs who spoke about supernatural things as coming from the fog or clouds.
At her feet there is an angel who is bald but with the face of a child, symbolizing both wisdom and innocence. The angel has the wings of an eagle decorated by a rainbow of blue, green, white, and red feathers. The eagle was the herald of the Aztec civilization. Mary would bring to America a new civilization.
The blue-green color of Mary’s mantle had imperial associations. Only the Aztec emperor wore a blue mantle, typically festooned with emeralds symbolizing the heavens. At her feet there are two pieces of clothing, her tunic and mantle, held up by an eagle-angel. This symbolized her reign over the cosmos.
She is pictured as an Aztec princess but her posture and bowed head suggest that she is praying to someone greater than she. Prayer was not only practiced in word but, among the Aztecs, by dance. The Virgin has her weight on one foot while the other knee is bent, a prayer dance position.
Mary’s skin color is neither white like the Spaniards nor dark like the Indians. She is a mestiza, a combination of the two. She thus identifies herself completely with what the people of Mexico would become.
Mary wears a brooch with a bare cross which points to her Son’s victory over death in the resurrection.
The gold flower design on Mary’s tunic was not merely decorative, but symbolic. The four-petaled jasmine flower depicting the four directions (north, east, south and west) represented God. This flower, appearing only once, was positioned over the womb just below her pregnancy belt thus signifying that her child was divine. The eight-petaled flower which appears eight times symbolizes a new beginning and harmony among the spheres. The cluster of heart shaped flowers which appears nine times contains Aztec glyphs that stand for civilization. One cluster is placed above her clasped hands indicating an intercessory role for Mary.
There is much more symbolism in the tilma. Mary is the first evangelist in that she was the first to present Christ to the world and she evangelizes here in language and symbols that the natives could comprehend. They understood Mary’s expression of God’s love and responded to it. Previously only few natives were converted, but eventually 8 million were baptized. So many natives wanted baptism that the priests petitioned Rome for permission to use a shortened form.
It is time for this generation of Americans to respond to the love letter that is the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Printed December, 2009
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St. Mary's Church Pastor & Vicar
