Our Lady of Guadalupe
Bringing Unity to Diversity

By Andrew Junker, The Catholic Sun
December 7, 2006

This December marks the 475th anniversary of the appearance of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Juan Diego on a hill outside of Mexico City.

Though that historical event occurred nearly five centuries ago, Our Lady of Guadalupe remains omnipresent to Catholic families today.

Rosemarie Carreon, a parishioner at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish, recalled the impact the Blessed Mother had on her childhood.

“We grew up with her,” she said. “My mom was very devoted to her — my grandmother, all my sisters. Whenever a family member would die, we would pray a novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe right away.”

Her family’s spiritual devotion was simply natural, Carreon said. Her mother was a Guadalupana, a woman who would dress in traditional clothing and parade in celebration of the Virgin Mary.

Carreon herself participated in the annual celebrations. As a 14-year-old, she was chosen to portray the Virgen de Guadalupe, dressing up like the image of the Blessed Virgin found on Juan Diego’s tilma, or cloak.

Now as an adult, Carreon keeps the family’s traditional devotion to Our Lady alive in her own home.

“I had this huge frame of Our Lady of Guadalupe hidden in my closet. I had forgotten she was there. When I was remodeling one of my rooms, I found it and my sister said I should make an altar for her,” Carreon said.

She made an altar out of an old dresser, placing candles and fresh flowers from her rose garden on it daily.

“Whenever I feel down, or feel like I need to talk to her in private, I go there, sit down, turn off the lights, light the candles and pray the rosary,” she said. “I believe in her miracles.”

The ‘finger of God’

In 1531, Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, an indigenous Mexican who had recently converted to the faith, was walking from his town into Mexico City. As he passed the hill called Tepeyac, a woman appeared, identifying herself as the Mother of God.

She told him to build a temple on the hill. So that the bishop would believe him, she eventually directed Juan Diego to place roses in his tilma as proof of her miraculous appearance.

When Juan Diego presented the roses to the bishop, they were both startled to find an image of the woman who appeared to him blazoned on the coarse fabric of his clothing.

Fr. Robert Gonzalez, an expert on the apparition of the Blessed Virgin to Juan Diego from Tucson, said Our Lady of Guadalupe has had such a lasting impact because she spoke to people in a new way.

“What Our Lady did was to inculturate the Gospel in a way that the Spanish missionaries at that time could not do,” he said, noting the difficulties that arose for the Church in 16th century Mexico.

The Spanish Catholics were having a hard time presenting the faith in an understandable way to the indigenous peoples. In addition, the Church in Mexico suffered from infighting between the Dominicans and Franciscans.

“Conversions were hard to come by,” Fr. Gonzalez said.

“The apparition came at a very timely point and broke the logjam, as it were, and in a very short time, millions were converted and asking to be baptized,” he said.

By appearing to an indigenous person and speaking to him in his native language, Our Lady of Guadalupe showed that the Gospel message did not have to be alien to the Indians.

The image on Juan Diego’s tilma presented all sorts of pictorial messages that the Indians — but not the Spaniards — could understand.

The colors and clothing of Our Lady of Guadalupe recalled certain aspects of the Indians’ native religion, which convinced them that Catholicism could bring a fullness to their culture, rather than destroy it.

She showed that “there was a continuity with the old world views, and that the Gospels were a fulfillment of their traditions,” Fr. Gonzalez said.

“It was a powerful impetus to evangelization and inculturation of the Gospel at a time when no one really knew how to do that,” he added. “It was the finger of God that was involved.”

‘A prophetic challenge’

Though the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe was primarily directed to the indigenous people of Mexico, her appearance ushered in a new era of cultural synthesis, Fr. Gonzalez said.

“The documentation shows that very quickly not just the Indians, but the Spaniards, too, were going to the little hermitage chapel to ask for graces from God,” he said.

“What the apparition did was bring peoples together, bridging the chasm between two different cultures,” he said. “Her face in itself is a challenge, because it’s not a European or Indian face. It’s a fusion.”

Fr. Gonzalez said that desire is as pertinent today as it was five centuries ago.

When he preaches at the Phoenix Diocese’s celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 10, Fr. Gonzalez said he will highlight the need to see Our Lady as an “exemplar for being a welcoming society to the unborn, to the immigrant and to the marginalized.”

“What she’s asking is for people to live as one,” he said.

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted said a devotion to Our Lady will help foster this understanding and respect.

“Her shining example of faithful love, even in painful moments, inspires us to a similar fidelity at this time in history, here in Arizona,” the bishop said.