December 12, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe,

Patroness of the Americas.

The following is from the website http://www.sancta.org, an excellent tribute and labor of love dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

"Our Lady of Guadalupe

Mesoamerica, the New World, 1521: The capital city of the Aztec empire falls under the Spanish forces. Less than 20 years later, 9 million of the inhabitants of the land, who professed for centuries a polytheistic and human sacrificing religion, are converted to Christianity. What happened in those times that produced such an incredible and historically unprecedented conversion?

In 1531 a "Lady from Heaven" appeared to a humble Native American at Tepeyac, a hill northwest of what is now Mexico City.

She identified herself as the ever virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the True God for whom we live, of the Creator of all things, Lord of heaven and the earth.

She made a request for a church to be built on the site, and submitted her wish to the local Bishop. When the Bishop hesitated, and requested her for a sign, the Mother of God obeyed without delay or question, sending Her native messenger to the top of the hill in mid-December to gather an assorment of roses for the Bishop.

After complying to the Bishop's request for a sign, She also left for us an image of herself imprinted miraculously on the native's tilma, a poor quality cactus-cloth, which should have deteriorated in 20 years but shows no sign of decay 475 years later and still defies all scientific explanations of its origin.

It apparently even reflects in Her eyes what was in front of her in 1531." (more at site)

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The "humble Native American" is known to us by his Christian name, Juan Diego, and the Church has named him a saint. St. Juan Diego's tilma bearing the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which should have deteriorated more than 400 years ago, is in the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City. It is the most popular Marian shrine in the world, visited by some ten million people each year. Only the Vatican is visited by more people.


I encourage everyone to check out sancta.org; you may want to bookmark it as a source for prayers, including a Novena to OLG, a virtual Rosary, a recording of "Ave Maria," links to other important sites, and much more information about Our Lady of Guadalupe and the series of apparitions to Juan Diego, plus many photographs.

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"Let not your heart be disturbed. Do not fear that sickness, nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I not here, who am your Mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not happily within my fold? What else do you wish? Do not grieve nor be disturbed by anything."

(Words of Our Lady to Juan Diego)

". . . What does it mean to be guadalupano? What does it mean for us to be devoted sons of the Virgin of Guadalupe? We'd be fairly worthless sons if all we did was come to her Mass once a year and keep a little picture of her here and there. Being guadalupano has to be more than that.

The first thing we need to consider is what is important to the Virgin. The Virgin appeared to a poor Indian and spoke to him in the only language he knew, not the conquerors' Spanish, but the native Nahuatl. She came not to bring more oppression, but to bring a people to the Gospel. Through her intervention, Latin America became Catholic and traded in the bloody cult of the local gods for the merciful religion of the Virgin's Son. Throughout the years, the image of this Virgin would accompany Mexicans in their greatest needs and stand alongside the poor and marginalized without fail. To be guadalupano, then, means in some sense to follow the Virgin's lead. It means to stand up for the weak, the powerless, and those stripped of their rights: the unborn children menaced by abortion; those without food to eat; those without places to live; the people afflicted by war, persecution, and violence of every kind; immigrants, with and without papers; whoever is forced to the margins of society and left at the mercy of the stronger. If these people are important to her, then they had better be important to us.

The second thing to consider is what the Virgin told Juan Diego to ask the Bishop. She wanted a church built to her honor. She wanted the Bishop to erect a temple so that Mass could be said and so that people could come to worship her Son. If the Mass was so important to the Virgin, what should it mean for us? If this was her chief reason for speaking to Juan Diego, shouldn't we give Holy Mass the priority in our weeks? It's wonderful that so many of us are here to honor the Virgin at this particular Mass tonight. Don't you think the Virgin of Guadalupe would want us in this church with great regularity?

We make our prayers to the Virgin tonight, and we probably bring her the special needs that are close to our hearts. Many will be making the customary promises and vows to her tonight. I'd suggest, as we make our promises to her, that we should consider the things that matter to her -- defending the defenseless and staying close to the Church -- and make our promises based upon them. This is the way for us to stay devoted children of the Virgin, guadalupanos to the end. Amen."


http://donjim.blogspot.com/2003_12_01_donjim_archive.html#107152164646913053

Guadalupe could be "She who crushes the snake". That makes her even more beautiful to me. I had the third graders make little Guadalupe shrines in class Sunday. They folded a piece of paper in quarters to make a triptych and glued a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe inside. Then they decorated their shrines with stickers: stars, butterflies, flowers, angels etc or with drawings. They really enjoyed it.


"The origin of the name Guadalupe has always been a matter of controversy. It is nevertheless believed that the name came about because of the translation from Nahuatl to Spanish of the words used by the Virgin during the apparition to Juan Bernardino, the ailing uncle of Juan Diego.
Some believe that Our Lady used the Aztec Nahuatl word of coatlaxopeuh which is pronounced "quatlasupe" and sounds remarkably like the Spanish word Guadalupe. Coa meaning serpent, tla being the noun ending which can be interpreted as "the", while xopeuh means to crush or stamp out. So Our Lady must have called herself the one "who crushes the serpent."is "She who crushes the snake"

and in Genesis 3, when God discovers that Adam and Eve have disobeyed Him and eaten the forbidden fruit, they have a dialogue that includes these verses:


13 And the Lord God said to the woman: Why hast thou done this? And she answered: The serpent deceived me, and I did eat.

14 And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and the beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

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.


(from the online Douay-Rheims Bible http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0011/_INDEX.HTM)

I thought this was referred to again in the Apocalypse of St. John but I couldn't find it there.



I'm sure the third graders enjoyed making their Guadalupe shrines. They're fun to teach at that age. :-)

I just don't have the proper teacher voice to make them all be quiet. On the other hand, I think they are learning something.