Behold Your Mother:An Introduction to Mariology

Part 3: Our Lady of Guadalupeby Søren Filipski

Our Lady of Guadalupe, 1531

St. Juan Diego, 1474-1548

Birth name:Cuauhtlatoatzin

Baptized 1524Canonized 2002

39-Year Timeline• 1492 – Columbus discovers America• 1517 – Cordoba discovers Mexico• 1519 – Cortes Lands in Mexico• 1522 – Cortes destroys the Aztec Empire• 1528 – Juan de Zumárraga becomes first Bishop

of Mexico• 1531 – Our Lady appears to Juan Diego

Aztec Temple

Aztec Temple

Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlan

Templo Mayor in TenochtitlanSixth TempleInaugurated 1487

1,000 people sacrificed per day for twenty days and nights.

Huitzilopochtli & Tlaloc

Tonantzin

Temple on Tepayac hill destroyed by Spaniards, 1521

Hernan Cortes (1485-1547)

Conquered Mexico, 1519-22

Destroyed Aztec Temples and Idols

Juan de Zumárraga (1468-1548)

First Bishop of Mexico, 1528

Advocate of the rights of Native Americans

Established Guadalupe Shrine, 1531

Nican Mopohua (1649)Ten years after the City of Mexico was conquered, with the arrows and shields put aside, when there was peace in all the towns, just as it sprouted, faith now grows green, now opens its corolla, to the knowledge of the One by whom we all live: the true God.

By any chance am I worthy, have I deserved what I hear? Perhaps I am only dreaming it? Perhaps I’m only dozing? Where am I? Where do I find myself?

He prostrated himself in her presence. He listened to her breath, her words, which give great, great glory, which were extremely kind, as if from someone who was drawing him toward her and esteemed him highly.

The Lord of what is around us and touching us or very close to us, the owner and Lord of the sky,

the owner of the earth.

I want very much that they build my sacred little house here. In which I will show him, I will exalt him on making him manifest.

Of your people and all people who live together in this land, and of all the other people of different ancestries, my lovers, those who cry to me, those who seek me, those who trust in me…

I am a porter’s rope I am a backframe, a tail, a wing, a man of no importance: I myself need to be led, carried on someone’s back.

I have no lack of servants, … but it is very necessary that you, personally, go and plead, that my

wish, my will, become a reality.

And know, my dear son, that I will reward your care and the work and fatigue that you have put into this for me.

Do not let it disturb you. Do not fear this sickness or any other sickness. … Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms?

Tell him that I ordered you to climb to the top of the little hill to cut flowers, and everything that you saw and admired, so that you can convince the governing priest.

And just as all the different precious flowers fell to the floor, then and there the beloved Image of the Perfect Virgin Holy Mary, Mother of God, became the sign.

And as soon as the Governing Bishop and all those who were there saw it, they knelt, they were full of awe and reverence.

The Name “Guadalupe”

Possibly from Coatlaxopeuh: “She who crushes the stone snake”

Old Basilica 1531-1709

New Basilica (1976)

Unusual FeaturesNo undersketchNo fading, even of blue pigmentsNo cracks in the paintAgreement of lines in image and cloth

Reflections in Cornea

They came to acknowledge its divine character. They came to offer her their payers.They marveled at the miraculous way it had appeared, since absolutely no one on earth had painted her beloved Image.

You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains? The artist does not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is redrawn on the same material. Even so it was with the All-Holy Son of God.

-St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 14