Pope Francis stated in a
talk on November 29,2016 : "God reveals his mysteries not to the wise and
the learned but to those who are humble and childlike. Advent is a time to
journey to meet the Lord."
Frequently Advent is equated with
'waiting'. However this waiting is not only sitting in silence but actively
reaching out to others also on this journey of joyful expectation of the coming
of our Lord. Mary of above all others was acutely aware of this.
On December 12,the Feast day of Our
Lady of Guadalupe; our chaplain, Fr. John Cahill, commented on the Gospel
of Mary journeying to visit her cousin, Elizabeth also with child. Then he
went on the discuss the journey of Mary at Guadalupe in Mexico and in
Spain. Which was unknown to most of us. Fascinated with this information. I gleaned
from the internet much of the following.
Frequently Advent is equated with
'waiting'. However this waiting is not only sitting in silence but actively
reaching out to others also on this journey of joyful expectation of the coming
of our Lord. Mary of above all others was acutely aware of this.
Most of us know the story of Our Lady
of Guadalupe of Mexico declared Patroness of all the American continent. In the
16th century a poor Indian named Cuauhtlatohuac was baptized and given the name
of Juan Diego. At age 57, a humble man, he was journeying to a nearby barrio to
attend mass in honor of Our Lady when he heard a beautiful music as of many
birds warbling. Then a radiant cloud appeared and within it stood a young
native maiden dressed as an Aztec princess. She spoke to him in his own
language asking him to go to the Bishop and ask him to build a chapel on this
site.
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| Our Lady of Guadalupe Mexico |
The bishop was s Franciscan named Juan de
Zummarraga. He asked Juan Diego to have the Lady send him a sign to let him
know she was not just a figment of imagination supposedly. At the same
time an uncle of Juan Diego became seriously ill. In caring for his uncle and
unsure of how he as a poor man could ask the of The Lady he tried to avoid her.
However the Lady did find him and
journeyed there. She let him know that his uncle would recover and provided him
with unseasonable roses which filled his cape [tilma]. When he presented
these to the bishop an image of Mary appeared exactly as she had appeared on
the hillside on December 9th,1531. Then the bishop asked the name of the Lady,
he heard in the native language Coatlaxopeuh [that translates to 'she who
crushes the serpent' and pronounced Quatlasupe. The Spanish bishop assumed it
was Guadalupe as he knew of the shrine of our Lady of Guadalupe there.
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| Nuesta Senora of Quadalupe Spain |
Now for the rest of the story of
Mary's journey in Spain. In Extremadura,Spain there is a royal Monastery of
Guadalupe in which is kept a famed statue of Nuestra Senora of Quadalupe. Local legend has it that
a statue of a Black Madonna supposedly carved by St Luke and later given
to St Leander,archbishop of Seville. Many cures and miracles were attributed to
intercession of this Black Madonna.
In 712 as the Moors were overtaking the local
territory, a group of priests fled with the statue and buried it in the hills
near the Guadalupe River. In the 14th Century as a poor, humble cowboy named
Gil Cordero was searching for a lost animal, a beautiful Lady appeared to him
and asked him to get the local priests to dig at this site. Here was found the
Statue of the Beautiful Black Madonna in perfect Condition.
A shrine was built and Alfonso XI the King endowed a Hieronymite monastery. In the 16th century, Mary became
the patron of all Spain's New World territories. Columbus was particularly
devoted to her and, after a terrible tempest on his first voyage, made a
pilgrimage of thanks to the shrine. For four centuries royalty was closely
aligned with the monastery. It became one of the wealthiest ecclesiastical
establishments in the country.
Today the monastery is cared for by nine
Franciscan monks and remains one of Spain's most important pilgrimage sites. In
1955 Pope Pius XII declared it to be a minor Papal Basilica. Pope John
Paul II also visited there in his journeying.
May our advent journeying continue
with Our Lady at our side.
Sr. Joan Gripshover, OSB
Dear Sister, thank you for this further information -- I read an English translation of an account of Juan Diego's encounter but it did not include the information above. I have been greatly blessed in learning about Saint Mary in the past 12 years, discovering that in Mexico her role was a merciful healing to the people after the trauma of the foreign conquest, bringing a better faith with a truer sacrifice (compare Aztecs and Mayan). It was God's will that she was a bridge of mercy, and so she remains through the ages, and I pray to her in full and conscious need of God's help. That is her meaning, among other ways of thinking about her -- so much to think about, it is all a gift of love. The beautiful churches of Mexico in which her presence is so strong! We need to celebrate beauty as a true Christian goodness, to understand beauty spiritually, to know that this is a benefit in our faith. Merry Christmas OSB!
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