Our Lady of Guadalupe,

Pray for us all!

Happy Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe today! I hope you feast on Mexican foods today! :) I'm making taco lasagna with chips and salsa, and rose-shaped cinnamon rolls for dessert. Perhaps your family could also gather to pray a rosary today, and imagine how Juan Diego would have prayed with tender trust to our Lady once he saw her beautiful face and heard her loving voice. He affectionately called Our Lady, "Senora mia, mi nina" (my Lady, my little girl"), and she tenderly called him "Juanito," or her little Juan. May we have such a tender love for Our Mother Mary too, and give thanks to God for allowing her to appear to Juan Diego and other humble souls throughout history to teach us about her motherly love, and God's fatherly love and mercy for us all! You may also want to share with your family some of these miraculous facts about Our Lady of Guadalupe and Juan Diego's tilma:

Our Lady of Guadalupe Fact Page

Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to Saint Juan Diego on December 9, 10 and 12, 1531.
The image is proven not to be painted by human hands; no natural or animal mineral colorings, or paint, are found on it
The image has remained intact with all its original vibrancy for 475 years. The natural life span of a cloak made with fiber from the gave or maguey plant is only about 30 years.
The image is a pictograph which could be read and understood by the Aztec Indians.
On her rose garment is a topographical map of the location of her apparition.
Our Lady appears as a beautiful young Indian maiden and Queen.
She is wearing a blue-green mantle (the color worn by royalty) covered with stars.
The stars signify she comes from heaven – the Queen of Heaven. The constellations are in the exact position as appeared before dawn on the morning of December 12, 1531.
Her robe is colored rose or pale red and covered with Aztec flowers, symbolic of an Aztec princess.
In the center of her robe, overlying her womb, is a four petal quincunx flower in the shape of a cross which is the sign of the Divine and the center of the cosmic order to the Aztec. The Virgin’s Baby, Jesus, is Divine and the new center of the universe.
Her hands are joined in prayer and, therefore, she is not God but clearly there is one greater than she and she points her finger to the cross on her brooch.
Her fur cuffs symbolize royalty.
She wears a black maternity band signifying she is with Child.
A black cross is on the brooch around her neck. This signifies she is a follower of the God of the Spanish Missionaries, Jesus Christ who died on the cross for all.
She stands in front of the sun. The sun symbolizes the greatest Aztec god – Huitzilopochtli. She announces the God who is greater than their sun god.
She stands on the moon. The crescent moon symbolized the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent moon god. She has clearly crushed and defeated him.
The image depicts Revelation 12:1: a woman clothed with the sun with the moon at her feet
An angel with eagle’s wings supports the Mother of God. The eagle was the “bird of the sun.” Here the eagle is the servant of the Virgin. She holds her mantle in one hand and robe with the other, signifying the Son she bears is from both heaven and earth.
To date the image cannot be explained by science.
The image on the tilma was able to do what up to that time the missionaries were not able to do significantly. Namely, clearly explain Christianity to the Indian people. The proof is in the fact that after the apparitions, eight million natives of Mexico converted to Catholicism from 1531 to 1538.
A doctor once heard a heartbeat coming from the image using a stethascope over the womb area.
The eyes of the image have the refractory characteristics of human eyes, and they miraculously reflect the image of the witnesses present at its unveiling, including Juan Diego and the bishop.

I also found this article by the modern-day Catholic "prophet" Charlie Johnston very interesting, especially how the actual title "Guadalupe" is actually a mispronunciation of the Aztec word that Juan Diego used to refer to Our Lady---"Coatlallope"---which literally means "she who crushes the serpent." How fitting!

In 1531, the poor peasant, St. Juan Diego, was visited by Our Lady several times on Tepeyac Hill, near what is now Mexico City. Most of the missionaries in the Americas were well-intended, but they had utterly failed to convert the Aztec Indians. The average Aztec was caught between a rock and a grinding stone. Their indigenous faith, the cult of Quexlcoatl (the infamous feathered serpent) required constant human sacrifice. The pyramids always ran red with human blood. The Spanish and Portuguese explorers frequently enslaved native peoples. The problem was so bad that, in 1430, Pope Eugene VII had made enslaving a native of the Canary Islands a matter of excommunication. In 1537, Pope Paul III explicitly extended the punishment to the enslaving of American Indians, as well.

The Aztec culture had long prophesied of a woman who would free them from the bloody requirements of Quexlcoatl. When Juan Diego tried to report the messages of Our Lady to his bishop, the bishop quite reasonably demanded some proof. On his last visit to Our Lady, a bunch of wild roses were blooming at the hilltop out of season. Our Lady told Juan Diego to gather them up in his tilma (an apron made of cactus fibers, commonly worn by working peasants) and take the flowers to the bishop. When he dropped them from his apron in front of the bishop, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared on his apron. (Interestingly, tilmas rot, usually within 20 years – and never last more than 40. Diego’s tilma, with the image of Our Lady on it, still stands in the cathedral in Mexico City, vibrant almost 500 years later). The titles of Our Lady are always related to where she appeared or to what her primary role in that appearance is. Diego explained to the bishop that this woman was, in Aztec "Coatlallope", which roughly translated means “she who crushes the serpent.” The bishop, however, mistakenly heard the name of the European Spanish City, Guadalupe, rather than the Aztec phrase, which is how the title came about.

The miraculous image spoke simultaneously to two cultures. I could go into detail on what it meant to the Aztecs, but suffice it to say it was recognized as the deliverance from the bloody cult of Quexlcoatl. Within a decade, 10 million Indians converted and the Cult of Quexlcoatl was consigned to the ash heap of history. When the missionaries failed, Our Lady came herself and accomplished the conversion to the worship of her Son, Jesus--the Christ. In today's culture, our little efforts to re-convert Europe and to convert Islam may fail, but so long as we hold fast to Our Lady’s mantle, she will prevail. (excerpt from Charlie Johnston's blog: https://charliej373.wordpress.com/

Lastly, here is the recipe for the rose-shaped cinnamon rolls that we like to make on this Feast day: http://catholiccuisine.blogspot.com/2015/07/st-elizabeth-rose-bread.html

Our Lady of Guadalupe,

Pray for us all!