A Blessed Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Our Lady, as an instrument of the Holy Ghost, is responsible for the conversion of the Mexican people in the 16th c. when she appeared to St. Juan Diego, a peasant. On this date in 1531, Juan saw the Blessed Virgin on Tepeyac Hill in what is now Mexico City. Speaking in Juan's native Aztec language known as Nahuatl, she requested that he go to the Bishop in order to have a church built.

The Bishop, though, didn't believe Juan. Later that same day, Juan met the Lady again, and she insisted that he return to the Bishop and make her request again.

Once more, the Bishop disbelieved. He told Juan to ask the Lady for a sign to prove who she is, so Juan returned to the place where he saw the Lady. This time, she told Juan that she would give him a sign the next day if he'd return to the hill.

By the time the next day came, Juan's Uncle had become very sick, so Juan busied himself with getting a priest to visit with him. He was embarrassed at not heeding the Lady's request, so took a route to avoid the hill where he'd met the Woman. But the Lady appeared to him anyway on that divergent path, and she admonished him for not returning to the hill as she'd asked. She said to him, "¿No estoy yo aquí que soy tu madre?" ("Am I not here, I who am your mother?").

She told him, too, that his Uncle had been healed and that he should now go to the hill and pick the flowers he'd find there. He obeyed, and gathered up roses -- roses which shouldn't have been blooming at all at that time of year. He wrapped them up in his cloak -- his "tilma" -- and rushed off to show the Bishop the sign that the Lady gave. And when he unfurled his tilma before the Bishop, and the roses scattered to the floor, there appeared on his cloak a miraculous image of the Lady he'd seen.

The image, the nature of which is still unexplained by science, is extant today, though that tilma should have disintegrated centuries ago. It is kept in the "New Basilica" a few miles northeast of Mexico City, in the neighborhood of Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo. This great evidence of a miraculous apparition led to the conversion of literally millions of Indians. Their coming to Christ was the single greatest single Christian conversion event in all of history.¹

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Mexico of the early 16th century was still a land ruled by the Aztecs, a people whose demonic religion involved human sacrifice. Scholars estimate that between 20,000 to 250,000 people per year were sacrificed to the Aztecs' gods, and in one particularly bloody event -- the reconsecration of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, just five years before Columbus landed in the Americas -- 80,400 people were sacrificed over a period of four days. These human sacrifices would be taken to the top of the temple and laid down on a stone altar by four priests, one of whom would then use a flint knife to stab into the victim's belly, aiming his knife upward through the diaphragm in order to rip out his victim's still-beating heart. As the heart was placed into a bowl, the rest of the body was thrown down the temple stairs, at the bottom of which crowds gathered to dance and sing.

The victim would be decapitated, and the head de-fleshed, reduced to a skull. Then, two large holes would be bored into the skull, one on either side, and it would be slid onto a pole, forming the Emperor's tzompantli, which rather resembled a gigantic abacus with the beads replaced by victims' heads.

This is the world the Spanish conquistadors found when they crossed the Atlantic. And, thankfully, it is the world that Hernan Cortes conquered between 1519 and 1521.¹

Ten years after Cortes's conquest, on December 9, 1531, a peasant named Cuauhtlatoatzin -- now known as St. Juan Diego -- had a vision of Our Lady on a hill called Tepeyac in what is now Mexico City, a hill where the Aztecs once worshipped Tonantzin, their mother godess. She spoke to Juan in his native Nahuatl language, revealing to him that she is the Mother of the God, and that she wanted a church built on the hill.

Juan ran to tell the Archbishop, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, what he saw, but the Archbishop disbelieved him. On that same day, Juan saw Our Lady again, and she insisted he persevere, so on the following day, the 10th of December, he returned to the Archbishop and pleaded with him once more. This time, the Archbishop told Juan to ask her for a sign, some proof. So Juan returned to the hill and told the Blessed Virgin what Zumárraga said. The Virgin told him that she would provide such a sign the next day. But by the time that next day came, Juan's Uncle had fallen dangerously ill, so Juan went off to find a priest for him. Ashamed at not having gone back to the hill, he went a different route, not wanting to confont Our Lady. Our Lady, however, met him on that divergent route he took, and chided him for not returning to her, asking him, "¿No estoy yo aquí que soy tu madre?" ("Am I not here, I who am your mother?"). She then told him that his Uncle had been cured, and that he should go to the hill and gather the flowers he'd find there. This he did. He gathered up Castilian roses, a flower that wasn't native to the area and that shouldn't have been found blooming in December even if they should've been growing there in the first place. Our Lady arranged the flowers in Juan's "tilma" -- the cloak he'd been wearing -- and then he ran with it to the Archbishop. Upon meeting Zumárraga, he opened up his tilma to reveal the miraculous roses. As he did so, something else was revealed as well: as the roses fell out onto the floor, the men saw that, on the tilma, a miraculous image appeared. It is that image that is the subject of this page.

After meeting with the Archbishop, Juan went to see his Uncle, who told him that he, too, had seen the Virgin. She had come to him as he lay sick, and she told him the story of her meeting with Juan, and also that she wanted to be known as Our Lady of Guadalupe, a title under which she'd been known in Castile, Spain since the 14th century. It is under that title that she's become the great patroness of the peoples of the Americas.²

Customs

Some may prepare for this feast by praying a Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe starting on December 3 and ending on December 11, the eve of this feast. A prayer for the feast itself, prayed by Pope John Paul II on his first papal trip, which included a stop in Mexico City, in 1979:

O Immaculate Virgin, Mother of the true God and Mother of the Church, who from this place reveal your clemency and your pity to all those who ask for your protection, hear the prayer that we address to you with filial trust, and present it to your Son Jesus, our sole Redeemer. Mother of Mercy, Teacher of hidden and silent sacrifice, to you, who come to meet us sinners, we dedicate on this day all our being and all our love. We also dedicate to you our life, our work, our joys, our infirmities and our sorrows. Grant peace, justice and prosperity to our peoples; for we entrust to your care all that we have and all that we are, our Lady and Mother. We wish to be entirely yours and to walk with you along the way of complete faithfulness to Jesus Christ in His Church; hold us always with your loving hand.

Virgin of Guadalupe, Mother of the Americas, we pray to you for all the Bishops, that they may lead the faithful along paths of intense Christian life, of love and humble service of God and souls. Contemplate this immense harvest, and intercede with the Lord that He may instill a hunger for holiness in the whole people of God, and grant abundant vocations of priests and religious, strong in the faith and zealous dispensers of God’s mysteries.

Grant to our homes the grace of loving and respecting life in its beginnings, with the same love with which you conceived in your womb the life of the Son of God. Blessed Virgin Mary, protect our families, so that they may always be united, and bless the upbringing of our children.

Our hope, look upon us with compassion, teach us to go continually to Jesus and, if we fall, help us to rise again, to return to Him, by means of the confession of our faults and sins in the Sacrament of Penance, which gives peace to the soul.

We beg you to grant us a great love for all the holy Sacraments, which are, as it were, the signs that your Son left us on earth. Thus, Most Holy Mother, with the peace of God in our conscience, with our hearts free from evil and hatred, we will be able to bring to all true joy and true peace, which come to us from your son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

In Mexico City, twelve days of prayer -- adozavario-- precede this feast. The time from December 1 to to today is filled with Masses, processions, Rosaries, and fireworks, and culminates with Catholics -- often in traditional Mexican costumes -- lighting torches from fire lit in the sanctuary of the Basilica and bringing the fire, which symbolizes the light of Christ, back to their own parishes and homes in relays. Matachines-- traditional dance troupes whose history can be tracted back to Spain -- dress in colorfulbouffonsand dance in the streets for the Virgin. Flowers abound, and, of course, roses are placed at the feet of the Virgin in churches and homes all over the country. Paper cut in the shape of the Immaculate Heart are covered in foil, decorated, and placed near altars as ex-votos to symbolize favors sought, or gratitude for favors received (see below).All the while, millions of pilgrims pour into the city. On the eve of the feast, churches are filled in anticipation of serenading the Virgin --la Lupita-- early the next day, on "the morning of the Guadalupana."

Elsewhere in Mexico and in North American parishes with large Mexican American populations, this day is particularly celebrated, with processions, dancing, traditional Mexican and Indian costumes, a blessing of roses, and delicious Mexican foods, such as tamales, gorditas, tacos al pastor, and buñuelos -- fried cakes of dough either drizzled with honey or syrup, or coated with sugar and cinnamon.

Buñuelos

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup cold water
Canola oil
As desired: honey, syrups, cinnamon-sugar mixture

Mix flour, powder, salt, and the sugar. Add the shortening and mix until you get a mixture that may remind you of wet sand. Gradually add the water, a tiny bit at a time until it's all incorporated. Knead a few times on on a floured surface, then cover the dough and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Pour about an inch of the oil into a large skillet and heat up to medium heat.

When your oil is hot enough, grab pieces of the dough and form into balls that are about 2 1/2 inches in size (you should have around 24 balls. Keep them covered as you roll them up.). Next, roll a couple of the balls out to form very thin disks about 5 inches around. Keep the dough covered wile you fry the rolled out circles in the hot oil for about 2 minutes, and then flip and fry for about 2 minutes more. Drain on paper towels, and either sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar mixture, or serve with honey or syrups. Repeat with the rest of the dough balls.

1. https://www.fisheaters.com/customsadvent6.html

2. https://www.fisheaters.com/tilma.html