|
Miracle of Guadalupe endures
Devotion to Our Lady’s maternal presence unites families, cultures
By Andrew Junker
The Catholic Sun
Local Catholics Tommy and Elvira Espinoza are devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe and see her maternal presence every day of their lives.
But recently, they saw a dramatic sign from la Virgen at a dedication to a new statue of her likeness in Santa Fe, N.M. The statue was being unveiled at a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan was there to celebrate an outdoor Mass.
“The matachines, the Indians who dance for the Virgin, were there and you could hear their music and drums and see their beautiful feathers,” Espinoza recalled.
The local Knights of Columbus were also there and led the archbishop to the altar for Mass. There was a balcony overlooking the altar where the Knights were supposed to stand in formation, but the matachines had already filled up the space.
As Mass was beginning, the Knights and matachines began jostling for the space overlooking the altar.
“I thought they were going to go to blows,” Espinoza said. “I was sitting there thinking: the Virgen has brought our Lord to us, but our human nature doesn’t go away.”
Thankfully, fisticuffs didn’t break out. The Knights and matachines shook hands and lined up on the balcony together. The fact that peace was brokered between the native dancers and the Knights who include Christopher Columbus in their name held a symbolic significance not overlooked by Espinoza.
“Only the Virgen de Guadalupe could do that,” he said.
Perhaps that’s because Our Lady of Guadalupe has done it all before.
Our Lady’s message
When Our Lady appeared in 1531 to Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, an indigenous Mexican who had recently converted to Catholicism, the Spanish missionaries had not been seeing much success in spreading the faith.
And yet in the few short years following her apparition and message to Juan Diego in his native language, millions of indigenous converted.
She told him to build a church on the hill called Tepeyac, and placed miraculous roses in his tilma so that his bishop would believe him. When Juan Diego showed the roses to the bishop, they both found that his tunic now bore the image of the woman who had appeared to him.
“Let’s face it — if it had not been for the Virgen de Guadalupe, Mexico and even the Americas as a whole would not have been evangelized,” Espinoza said.
“I think people forget that when she appeared, there was a big struggle between the indigenous Indians and the Spaniards in Mexico. And these things are still playing today, believe it or not,” he said.
Now her prophetic message of unity is brought to a multi-cultural diocese like Phoenix, and to the country at large, Espinoza said.
“What’s beautiful is it’s the same message. We need her just as much now in the history of our country as when she first appeared, because what we have now is the same clash, and it really is a clash,” he said. “It’s a largely Anglo but also Mexican-American population that hasn’t embraced the immigrant.”
Espinoza didn’t want to belabor the point, but he said the Dec. 7 Honor Your Mother event, which will celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, is a way to help bridge this cultural gap.
“When Bishop [Thomas J.] Olmsted asked us to work on the Mass for the Virgen de Guadalupe, part of the goal was to really explain that the Virgen is here for all of us, and that we should embrace our immigrant brothers as Catholics,” Espinoza said.
‘Always with us’
Catholics across the world feel a special kinship to la Virgen, but the devotion given her by Hispanics and Mexicans in particular is a testament to her loving presence.
Elvira Espinoza knows firsthand what that strength feels like. She was raised Protestant in Mexico City. After she immigrated to the United States, she felt a spiritual emptiness that led her to abandon any sort of church.
Then, one night she had a dream.
“I was looking through a window and I was very upset and fearful. The Virgen de Guadalupe came to me in my dream and said, ‘Don’t worry, everything is going to be fine,’” Elvira said.
“I was completely in shock and I said, ‘Why are you coming to me? I don’t even believe in you.’ She said, ‘I just came to tell you that everything is going to be OK.’ And then she went away.”
After she left, Elvira awoke to a feeling of peace she had never experienced before. It stayed with her for months, and she eventually entered the Catholic Church with her daughter six years ago.
“Since then I’ve been in love with the Virgen de Guadalupe. I’m in love with her and I know she’s with me every day and in everything I do and think,” Elvira said. “I can tell you that in our life it’s easier to go through tough times when you have this love and devotion to her and to our Lord.”
Her husband Tommy agreed and said he hopes that both Anglos and Hispanics will take this simple lesson about Our Lady of Guadalupe to heart.
“She’s real and she’s there and she helps us,” he said.
|
