It was St. John Paul II who named her Patroness of the Americas (which, according to my map, includes the English-speaking parts) and promoted her day to a feast day. In my breviary, whose copyright is from the 1970s, she's still listed as an optional memorial, the lowest rank of saint's days. By contrast, a feast day is the 2nd-highest.
The story of her miraculous appearances to the humble Aztec Juan Diego is becoming more well-known in US Catholicism. Part of that is because of "top-down" promotion by the bishops, clergy and other thought leaders in the church, including via Catholic media, Catholic schools and parish religious education programs. But surely the major reason is because of the large and growing presence of Catholics of Mexican heritage in the US.
The Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, IL, not far from where I live, has a major shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe. (Please click on the video at the link if you can; I am not adept enough to figure out how to embed it directly into this post.) Pilgrims, including some who come on horseback and some who walk for hours in the wintry weather, gather by the tens of thousands to commemorate her appearances.
Mexican Americans are on board with St. John Paul II, but what about the rest of us? All of us are Americans - all of us should consider her our Patroness. And given the political climate, I believe that the church's invitation and challenge to English speaking Americans to venerate Our Lady of Guadalupe is more important than ever. Our nation has witnessed a distressing coming to the political fore of a spirit of unwelcome to those who speak Spanish. The Catholic church offers witness to another way, a better vision: one in which English speaking and Spanish speaking people are fully equal as sisters and brothers. Of course, that vision hasn't reached full fruition yet in the church in the US, either. But that shouldn't stop us from striving toward it. Let us pray to Our Lady of Guadalupe to show us the way to a society marked by acceptance, love and justice, as a church and as citizens of the United States.
We went to Mexico five weeks ago with other parishioners on pilgrimage specifically for the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Our pastor blamed me for the trip since I suggested it while we were kidding around. (Memo: No more kidding around.) I do have to say the change from 21 feet above sea level to 7,832 feet is hard old folks with COPD.
ReplyDeleteBut I am glad we went. My Midwestern upbringing, like yours, was barren of any knowledge of Guadalupe. When Cesar Chavez's farm workers started picketing with banners of the tilma, I was handling photos at the National Catholic Reporter and had no idea of what it was -- or that copies of the tilma had also been the banner of Fr. Miguel Hildago when he started the Mexican Independence movement. Clueless in the Sixties. I think Our Lady has finally arrived here in El Norte, thanks to the immigrants the president* dislikes. I agree completely with your last paragraph.
One thing that's currently bugging me is the anglicizing of the Virgin in copies. The picture you use turns her head a little more to her right and gives her more northern European eyes, but there are more egregious "copies" sold within sight of the basilica in which she has blue eyes and blond hair. No. That is not how she appeared. In the real tilma she has definitely Indian features and her whole posture is more humble. She is also visibly 8 1/2 months pregnant. Look at the date!
Mary almost never looks Jewish in art. I like Henry Tanner's Annunciation (the one in which the angel is practically a pillar of light) because he seems to get that right. But after centuries of being painted to look like the artists' girlfriends or mistresses, she personally gave us this picture of herself. It shouldn't be messed with to get closer to Nordic standards of beauty.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, lead us to your real Son.
Tom, that's neat that you went on the pilgrimage. You'll have to post some photos here.
DeleteMerton, as always, was way ahead of everyone.
ReplyDeleteFrom his journal February 15, 1958:
This afternoon I suddenly saw the meaning of my American destiny..
My destiny is indeed to be an American -not just an American of the United States. We are only on the fringe of the true America...
I have never so keenly felt the impermanence of what is now regarded as American because it is North American, or the elements of permanence which are in South America. Deeper roots, Indian roots. The Spanish, Portuguese, Negro roots also. The shallow English roots are not deep enough. The tree will fall.
My vocation is American - to see and understand and to have in myself the life and the roots and belief and the destiny and the vocation of the whole hemisphere -as an expression of something of God, of Christ, that the world has not yet found out -and something that is only now, after hundreds of years coming to past.
No one fragment can begin to be enough -not Spanish colonial Catholicism, nor 19th century Republicanism, not agrarian radicalism, not the Indianism of Mexico but all of it, everything. To be oneself a whole hemisphere, and to help the hemisphere realize its own destiny
Jack - that is a pretty remarkable entry by Merton, many thanks for sharing it.
DeleteIn contrast to Philip Jenkins who wrote of the Global South as the Next Christendom, 2002, I have maintained since September 2005 that the Americas are the NEW CHRISTENDOM since we have the majority of the World’s Christians, the majority of the world’s Catholics, and the highest percent of Catholics in the area’s population.
DeleteI have even thought we would recognize this once a Latin American was elected Pope. Francis is actually not “from the ends of the earth” but from the center of the NEW CHRISTENDOM. However it is best the Italians and other Europeans take some time to figure that out.
Jack, It has taken a long time. I hope you are right.
DeleteJack and folks, did you ever see that episode of The West Wing where some activist geographers flipped the globe over such that the Southern Hemisphere was "on top", as a way to counteract bias toward the North? I thought it was pretty intriguing. Jack, it sounds like you want to tip the globe sideways :-)
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqC3FNNOaI
Jenkins in the Next Christendom essentially flipped the globe by noting that the Global South would have the majority of Christians in 2025
Delete"If we extrapolate these figures to the year 2025 (based on birth rates and assuming no great gains or loses through conversion) there will be about 2.6 billion Christians, of whom 640 will live in Latin America, 633 million will live in Africa, 460 million will live in Asia. Europe with 555 million will have slipped to third place. Africa and Latin America will be in competition for the most Christian continents; these two continents will account for half the Christians in the world.”
What I noted is that already Christendom had shifted Westward to the New World!
Christendom does not simply shift when the demographic shifts, it take a while for demographics to be institutionalized. Europe still has a huge residual of institutions even as the population has declined in terms of absolute numbers of Christians, and percentage of the population.
It is taking time for the Hispanic influence to become institutionalized here in the USA. Our stereotype of the Hispanic population consists of lone individuals who cross the border. I was surprised recently to find out the Hispanics locally in our county are almost all from one city in Mexico, so we really have a colony here of people who actually return to Mexico and then make the border run to come back!
Tom - good for you for making a pilgrimage. I hope to be able to do the same some day. For that matter - even later in life, I learned that there are quite a few Mexican saints, many of them martyrs from the 20th century. Blessed Miguel Pro was the first I learned about.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Pro
... but there are others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_of_the_Cristero_War
I don't know why US Catholic tourists aren't flooding the sites of their homes and shrines. Perhaps they are, and I've just never heard about it. But my impression is that English speaking Catholics can rattle off the names of Roman martyrs from 2000 years ago much more confidently than those of Mexican martyrs from within the lifetimes of our parents and grandparents.
Scotty Reston of the NY Times once said Americans will do anything for Mexico except read about it. The Mexican say, "Alas, so far from God, so close to the United States." Actually, the only non-Hispanic Catholics I know who have been to Guadalupe were the ones on our trip. On the other hand, I can name dozens who have been to Fatima or Lourdes (neither of which I am attracted to).
ReplyDeleteThere is a Spanish Mass in our parish tonight at 8. A statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe and a Mexican flag were on the altar this morning. I am sore tempted, as a brand new Guadalupano, to go even though I won't understand a word unless they sing "El Pescador" or "Te Presentate." The pastor said he's going to preside in the sombrero we presented to (forced on) him. But I doubt he will.
I've never really believed in Marian apparitions.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Cesar Chavez, he wrote something interesting about the Catholic church and the farm workers - back when the protests started, it was the Protestant church that helped the farm workers when they were striking. The Catholic bishops were on the side of the growers.
Crystal, Well, except for the bishop of Stockton (whose name escapes me right now but I had a great interview with him on an elevator). And about a dozen others. And Dorothy Day. The iconic photo of her was taken at a Farmworker rally. And a bunch of Catholic college presidents. And all sorts of members of CFM and other groups. And Blase Bonpane. And I could go on with exceptions. One Catholic archbishop was conspicuously on the side of the growers. He is dead now.
ReplyDeleteOh, and as to you first point. There is the tilma. I've seen it. Look at a good photo of the real thing, and remember a commission of Franciscans called it a fake. Then explain it.
DeleteI guess I'm pretty skeptical of miraculous religious images, including the one on the shroud of Turin, but especially of Mary because she wasn't made much of in the gospels, except for in the infant narratives which seem less factual.
DeleteHere's a bit from Chavez's The Mexican-American and the Church
"we began to run into the California Migrant Ministry in the camps and field. They were about the only ones there, and a lot of us were very suspicious, since we were Catholics and they were Protestants. However, they had developed a very clear conception of the Church. It was called to serve, to be at the mercy of the poor, and not to
try to use them. After a while this made a lot of sense to us, and we began to find ourselves
working side by side with them. In fact, it forced us to raise the question why our Church was not doing the same ..."
I am remembering the Church in the 60s and 70s as being pretty pro-migrant. I'm sure that wasn't the case in all locations. In western Nebraska they used to grow a lot of sugar beets. At that time it required a lot of hand labor, which employed migrants seasonally. The diocese was conscious of the people and tried to reach out to them and speak up for just conditions.
DeleteWhen I was growing up my paternal grandmother had a large framed picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe in her living room. She wasn't Hispanic, her family bavkground was French and English. But she had a heart for the culture and the people. She studied Spanish in her 60s and helped with vacation Bible school for migrant children.
ReplyDeleteOL of G was one of the few Marian apparitions that my convert mother wasn't uneasy with. I guess a little of that rubbed off on me, because I am very uncomfortable with Fatima for a number of reasons. But Guadalupe is different, as is Lourdes. However don't even get me started on Medjugore.
I have read about the image on the Tilma that when it was examined under high magnification the relection of Juan Diego kneeling could be seen in Mary's eyes. I don't know if that's true. But the survival of the tilma itself is a minor miracle, given the conditions it was exhibited under in the early days.
Some entrepreneurs have enlarged the eyes to the size of oranges. If one has enough faith, one can see the bishop and others as they would have appeared to Mary in the photo enlargement. I don't have that much faith, but there is something there,a level of detail that could be what the faithful see. The tilma also survived a massive bomb in 1921. The thing about apparitions is that believing in them is not necessary for faith. But I'd find it awfully hard not to believe that the tilma is a record of one of the graced moments when this Earth got a glimpse of what lies beyond it.
DeleteInteresting how dark complected Mary and the Infant are in the sacred Polish icon, Our Lady of Częstochowa. The original was damaged by Hussites in the 15th century. They restorers' techniques were unable to touch up the original. So they essentially erased the original and repainted. It would have been a good opportunity to bleach out the Madonna and Child to match my and my ancestors' slavic skin, but the recreation was dark, too. There are stories that the face became dark from the candle smoke. But I'm suspicious that that is a Polish-American thing, as we absorbed American racism.
ReplyDeleteI see some similarities between the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Our Lady of Knock. In both instances Mary seemed to just want to be present as a mother in times of hardship. She didn't make dire prophecies or show visions of hell. At Knock she didn't say anything: her message was just presence.
ReplyDeleteFrancis somewhere has an insightful commentary on Our Lady of Aparecida. The statue was found in a river. He comments that it was really the faith experience of the people that was projected onto the statue which enabled it to become the image of the Brazilian people.
ReplyDeleteFrancis has a deep faith in the presence of God in popular religion
I have gained more reverence for Mary as time passes. Ditto some of my favorite women saints. I think they're here in some way. Perhaps those with special graces actually do see them. St. Julian of Norwich was very dispassionate in classifying and interpreting her "shewings." She clearly wrote it for skeptics like me. And the power of her writing certainly broke down a few of my walls.
ReplyDeleteI like The writings of Julian of Norwich. I try to kerp in mind "All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well."
Delete