Our Lady of Guadalupe: December 12th

Mexico City
December 12, 2010

It is impossible to estimate the importance of Our Lady of Guadalupe to the people of Latin America, and especially to Mexicans.

It’s almost outside my realm of ability to convey how absolutely overwhelming was the experience of being at the Basilica at midnight on her feast day, December 12th.

In Mexico, it’s traditional to sing Las Manañitas on the morning of someone’s birthday.

In Mexico, it’s traditional to sing Las Manañitas to Mary at the stroke of twelve honoring in her feast day and uniting those present in this first devotion of the day to her.

Well……………….the single difference between someone singing Las Manañitas to you on the morning of your birthday, and devotees singing Las Manañitas to The Virgin of Guadalupe at midnight on her feast day is about a half a million people.

Estas son las mañanitas, que cantaba el Rey David, (This is the morning song that King David sang)
Hoy por ser día de tu santo, te las cantamos a ti, (Because today is your saint's day we're singing it for you)
Despierta, mi bien*, despierta, mira que ya amaneció, (Wake up, my dear*, wake up, look it is already dawn)
Ya los pajarillos cantan, la luna ya se metió. (The birds are already singing and the moon has set.)
Que linda está la mañana en que vengo a saludarte, (How lovely is the morning in which I come to greet you)
Venimos todos con gusto y placer a felicitarte, (We all came with joy and pleasure to congratulate you)
Ya viene amaneciendo, ya la luz del día nos dio, (The morning is coming now, the sun is giving us its light)
Levántate de mañana, mira que ya amaneci (Get up in the morning, look it is already day.)

Words like spine-tingling, deeply emotional, and vividly powerful are just too limited.

Three of us, all with connections to La Casa made the relatively short trek out to Tepeyec, the corner of Mexico where the apparition occurred 479 years ago on December 9, 1579.

When we exited the Metro I’d just assumed it would be a short walk into the complex. But I was wrong. Security was extremely tight and hundreds of policemen lined the main street that approached the Basilica. It was impossible to break through their line. So we walked. And we walked. And we walked even further away from the square, until we were almost a half mile away.

A half mile! Finally, we entered the throng that was twenty people wide, all pouring into the main square of the Basilica. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of us were approaching this place, this most revered of Catholic sites in all of the Americas. There was a single intent: honor Mary and be part of this gigantic, larger-than-life cultural experience.

We stayed close together moving slowly forward. Niko, a young woman from Japan, and I were in awe, our cameras never stopping. Our Mexican friend, Gerardo, who’d done this before, simply enjoyed our enthusiasm. Nico and I are both well –travelled, and both of us have huge appetites for things foreign. We knew just what we were experiencing---how hugely important this was to the Mexican psyche and how huge this was on the whole global scale of travel experiences. Stuff like this doesn’t happen every day, nor does it happen even once a year in some places.

Almost everyone was carrying something Marian. Some carried statues of the Virgin; others had her image emblazoned on their day packs. Many wore tee-shirts with her image on the front, worn over warmer clothes. Some carried placards and mounted posters; many had tied her picture, kept at home throughout the year, onto the back of their jackets. Almost all of these images were festooned in Christmas garland. Many carried blankets or sleeping bags.

The crowd, a massive river of people, slowly made its ways toward the Basilica, which we could see in the distance ahead of us. Periodically we’d stop, then move forward, and stop again. It became obvious that police at the front of the line were controlling the numbers entering the square.

About forty minutes later we were at the front of the line and our group of a thousand or so were let in. We simply surged forward with the others. And then we waited. The square filled with more people until there was barely room to move around. We waited. Until midnight. And then…

And then……..at midnight, prompted by a voice over the loudspeaker, the multiple groups of mariachi bands, guitarists, tuba players, bands, and other musicians began playing, and one by one, the multiple throngs of people began singing Las Mananitas. Nico and I did not know the words, but that was not important. We could be in the moment, relishing the nerve tingling, joyous outpouring of love and devotion as hundreds of thousands of people sang. We were speechless.

At midnight, Mass in the main Basilica started, and the multitude of people began pouring towards the church. There was no way they could attend Mass, of course, but they simply wanted to be part of the service, if even for a moment.
The real reason, of course, was to see the image of the Virgin that was imprinted on the cloak of Juan Diego on this date, December 12th.

There are thousands of us packed into a small space. The open air church is full of people and services are broadcasted on a loud speaker, but competing with the ritual of the mass are other loudspeakers cautioning people to be careful, move slowly, stay in their cordoned off areas. Slowly, we inch forward towards the church. If Nico, Gerardo or I tripped or fell or separated we’d be in serious trouble. We still hold hands or coat sleeves. Our goal, as it is with the others, was to get inside the church and push our way forward to the inner grotto where the image is proudly displayed high above four moving sidewalks.

Voices mingle. The Mass is a High Holy Mass. The altar is filled with choir members, priests, altar boys and other celebrants. Incense burns continuously. The choir sings hymns to Mary. A cantor replaces the choir. There seems to be continuous music. Only on TV, for Christmas Eve and Easter, and always from the Vatican, have I ever seen an altar so filled with people.

Other competing voices are the people manning bullhorns cautioning people to be careful. The crowd, thousands strong, is not silent. There is a cacophony that makes me wonder how those at Mass can concentrate on the service.

We can see and hear all this from our vantage point outside the Basilica where we inch closer and closer. After a slow, continuous, packed move forward we are finally at the front of a very long line. Forty or so people hold hands as a barrier to the throng behind them. It is finally our turn, and the group we are with, devotees carrying flowers, candles, pictures pile into the church. We are once again a river, albeit a smaller river, of people who are walking to the high, holy center of the church—the grotto where the image of the Virgin, imprinted on Juan Diego’s cloak 479 years earlier on this very date, hangs.

Close to the grotto is a place to lay flowers. It is five or six feet high, twenty feet across. People toss their bouquets on top. Those with candles will have to wait until they are outside. I have six rosaries that I’ve purchased for friends. I’ve yet to find a priest to bless them. The six of them are strung on my left hand. Above us, the choir is once again singing. Nico and I are overwhelmed. We finally enter the grotto. There are four, slow-moving sidewalks to propel people through and out. This way no one can linger. We step on the walkway. I am filled with an emotion more powerful than I would have imagined. I hold the rosaries high above me, facing the image, which is draped in a huge Mexican flag. In lieu of a priest, this is the best I can do. We can hear the powerful voices of the choir, the prayerful adulation of those moving along with us. This is one of the most amazing travel experiences in my life. I’m almost in tears at its intensity.

And then….it’s over. We step off the sidewalks, are propelled forward by more volunteers who keep the crowd moving. We step outside. It’s 1:30 a.m. We are now near the veladoria, the place where the thousands of candles are lit. Somehow, perhaps because we’re Gringos, someone lets us in, even though we don’t have candles. There are five or six huge sections for candles. A worker is clearing out a section of candles that has burned for no more than an hour, and is tossing them into a garbage can. Nico and I see this, look at each other and say, “Why not?” I ask if we can take a few candles. Now friends will not only get the rosaries, but a candle as well.

We’re finally asked to leave, and are propelled forward yet again. We find ourselves in a massive market of “religious” goods. Statues of Mary, Jesus, the Trinity. Rosaries, Scapulas, key chains. Post cards, prayer cards, “stick-on-your-front-dashboard Jesus’ and Mary’s. I buy wooden rosaries for all three of us, and a 4’ by 2 fabric tela—the image of the Virgin.

Once on the street we are met with thousands more—groups of bikers who’ve ridden for three days to be here this night, devotees on their knees very slowly walking toward the basilica. We have finally stopped holding on to each other. We’re hungry and buy something to eat from the many vendors selling all sort of Mexican fast food. Both Nico and I agree: we want to do this all over again. I ask Gerardo. After all, he’s worked all day and it’s now 2:00 a.m.

OK. We agree. We walk around the Basilica and the line, even at this hour, is still a half mile long. But we know it moves quickly. We take out place. Nothing in the line has changed. People still carry their statues and pictures. One group pushes an eight foot statue of Mary through the line in a wheelbarrow. This time I chat with people close to us. Why are you here? What does this mean to you? What’s the religious/cultural importance?

“She’s our Mother.” “She is Queen of Mexico.”

Once inside, the masses of people sleeping in the huge square have grown into the thousands. We cross a barricade and are somehow in a fast-track line. By now it’s 2:30 a.m. and Mass is over, but the church is still filled and there are still priests on the altar. Our feet are tired and we fortunately find a seat for the three of us. A group of Aztecs, dressed in traditional clothing, step forward. Several people play banjo/ukulele type stringed instruments. All dance—an intricate, joyous dance in honor of the Virgin. We are once again overwhelmed by the level of devotion.

But it’s late, and we are tired. Once the dance is done, we once again go through the grotto. This time we don’t want to do it again. We’re a long way from where we live, and there are two options: walk or pay scalper rates to a cab driver. I have more money than anyone and tell Nico and Gerardo that there is no way I’m going to walk at that hour, down dark streets of Mexico City. I spring the bucks and we speed back home.

We all sleep ‘til noon. I buy a newspaper and read that 7,000,000 people will have visited Tepeyec before the day is done. Seven million!

Sunday night there is a Christmas party at La Casa and the three of us reminisce about the night before. It seems dreamlike. Nico and Gerardo are still wearing the rosaries I bought them. Mine has been packed away. They seem offended in a good humored sort of way that I’m not wearing mine.

We spend a lovely evening singing Christmas carols and eating Christmas goodies. But nothing that night would ever equal the raw energy of Midnight to 4:00 a.m. at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe on her feast day!

What a privilege to have been part of it all!

-----------------

What follows is an article about the site for those who are interestes.

Our Lady of Guadalupe:

Location: Tepeyac, Mexico City, Mexico
Date: 9 December 1531
Witness: Saint Juan Diego
Type: Marian apparition
Holy See approval: 25 May 1754, pontificate of Pope Benedict XIV
Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Tepeyac, Mexico.

Our Lady of Guadalupe (Spanish: Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe), also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe (Spanish: Virgen de Guadalupe; Nahuatl: Tonantzin Guadalupe) is a celebrated Catholic image of the Virgin Mary.

The Image:

According to tradition the image appeared miraculously on the cloak of Juan Diego, a simple indigenous peasant, on the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City on December 12, 1531. Today it is displayed in the Basilica of Guadalupe nearby, the most visited Catholic shrine in the world.[1] The Virgin of Guadalupe is Mexico's most popular religious and cultural image, with the titles "Queen of Mexico",[2] "Empress of the Americas",[3] and "Patroness of the Americas";[4] both Miguel Hidalgo (in the Mexican War of Independence) and Emiliano Zapata (during the Mexican Revolution) carried Flags bearing the Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Guadalupe Victoria, the first Mexican president changed his name in her honor.

The iconography of the Virgin is impeccably Catholic: Miguel Sanchez, the author of the 1648 tract Imagen de la Virgen María, described her as the Woman of the Apocalypse from the New Testament's Revelation 12:1, "arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars,"[5] and she is also described as a representation of the Immaculate Conception.[5] Yet despite this orthodoxy the image also had a hidden layer of coded messages for the indigenous people of Mexico which goes a considerable way towards explaining her popularity.[6] Her blue-green mantle was the color reserved for the divine couple Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl;[7] her belt is interpreted as a sign of pregnancy; and a cross-shaped image symbolizing the cosmos and called nahui-ollin is inscribed beneath the image's sash.[8] She was called "mother of maguey,"[9] the source of the sacred beverage pulque,[10] "the milk of the Virgin",[11] and the rays of light surrounding her doubled as maguey spines.[9]

Detail of the faceTwo accounts published in the 1640s, one in Spanish and the other in Nahuatl, tell how, during a walk from his home village to Mexico City early on the morning of December 9, 1531, (the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Spanish Empire),[12] the peasant Juan Diego saw a vision of a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, surrounded by light, on the slopes of the Hill of Tepeyac. Speaking in the local language, Nahuatl, the Lady asked for a church to be built at that site in her honor, and from her words Juan Diego recognized her as the Virgin Mary. Diego told his story to the Spanish bishop, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, who instructed him to return and ask the Lady for a miraculous sign to prove her claim. The Virgin told Juan Diego to gather some flowers from the top of Tepeyac Hill. It was winter and no flowers bloomed, but on the hilltop Diego found flowers of every sort, and the Virgin herself arranged them in his tilma, or peasant cloak. When Juan Diego opened the cloak before Zumárraga the flowers fell to the floor, and in their place was the Virgin of Guadalupe, miraculously imprinted on the fabric.[13]

History:

Following the Spanish Conquest in 1519-21 a temple of the mother-goddess Tonantzin at Tepeyac outside Mexico City was destroyed and a chapel dedicated to the Virgin built on the site. Newly converted Indians continued to come from afar to worship there. The object of their worship, however, was equivocal, as they continued to address the Virgin Mary as Tonantzin.[14]

The first record of the painting's existence is in 1556, when Archbishop Alonso de Montufar, a Dominican, preached a sermon commending popular devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, a painting in the chapel at Tepeyac, where certain miracles had lately been performed. Days later he was answered by Francisco de Bustamante, head of the Colony's Franciscans and guardians of the chapel at Tepeyac, who delivered a sermon before the Viceroy expressing his concern that the Archbishop was promoting a superstitious regard for a painting by a native artist, Marcos Cipac de Aquino:

"The devotion that has been growing in a chapel dedicated to Our Lady, called of Guadalupe, in this city is greatly harmful for the natives, because it makes them believe that the image painted by Marcos the Indian is in any way miraculous."[15]

The next day Archbishop Montufar opened an enquiry. The Franciscans, holding that the image encouraged idolatry and supersition, testified that it was "painted yesteryear" by Marcos.[16] Appearing for the Dominicans, who favored allowing the Aztecs to venerate the Guadalupe, was the Archbishop himself. The matter ended with the Franciscans deprived of custody of the shrine[17] and the tilma mounted and displayed within a much enlarged church.[18]

The first extended account of the image and the apparition comes in Imagen de la Virgen Maria, Madre de Dios de Guadalupe, a guide to the cult for Spanish-speakers published in 1648 by Miguel Sanchez, a diocesan priest of Mexico City.[19] An anonymous Nahuatl language narrative, Huei tlamahuiçoltica ("The Great Event"), appeared at around the same time, probably written in 1649 by Luis Lasso de la Vega and based on Sánchez's narrative, which it closely mirrors. This contains Nican mopohua ("Here it is recounted"), a tract about the Virgin which contains the story of the apparition and the supernatural origin of the image, plus two other sections, Nican motecpana ("Here is an ordered account"), describing fourteen miracles connected with Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Nican tlantica ("Here ends"), an account of the Virgin in New Spain.[20]

Juan Diego

The growing fame of the image led to a parallel interest in Juan Diego. In 1666 the Church, with the aim of establishing a feast day in his name, began gathering information from people who had had known him, and in 1723 a formal investigation into his life was ordered, and much information was gathered. In 1987, under Pope John Paul II, who took an especial interest in saints and in non-European Catholics, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints declared him "venerable", and on May 6, 1990 he was beatified by the Pope himself during Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, being declared “protector and advocate of the indigenous peoples," with December 9 as his feast day.

At this point historians and theologians began to question the quality of the evidence regarding Juan Diego. There is no mention of him or his miraculous vision in the writings of bishop Zumárraga, into whose hands he delivered the miraculous image, nor in the record of the ecclesiatic inquiry of 1556, which omits him entirely, nor anywhere else before the mid-17th century. Doubts as to his reality were not new: in 1883 Joaquín García Icazbalceta, historian and biographer of Zumárraga, in a confidential report on the Lady of Guadalupe for Bishop Labastida, was very hesitant to support the story of the apparition and stated his conclusion that there was never such a person.[21] Neither were they welcome: in 1897 the Bishop of Tamaulipas, Eduardo Sánchez Camacho, was forced to leave his post after expressing similar disbelief,[22] and as recently as 1996 the abbot of the Basilica of Guadalupe, Guillermo Schulenburg, was forced to resign following an interview with the Catholic magazine Ixthus, when he said that Juan Diego was "a symbol, not a reality."[23]

In 1995, with progress towards sanctification at a stand-still, Father Xavier Escalada, a Jesuit writing an encyclopedia of the Guadalupan legend, produced a deer skin codex, (Codex Escalada), illustrating the apparition and the life and death of Juan Diego. Although the very existence of this important document had been previously unknown, it bore the date 1548, placing it within the lifetime of those who had known Juan Diego, and bore the signatures of two trustworthy 16th century scholar-priests, Antonio Valeriano and Bernardino de Sahagún, thus verifying its contents.[24] Some scholars remained unconvinced, describing the discovery of the Codex as "rather like finding a picture of St. Paul's vision of Christ on the road to Damascus, drawn by St. Luke and signed by St. Peter",[5] but Diego was declared a saint, with the name of Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, in 2002.

Scientific Analysis:

In 1979 Philip Serna Callahan investigated the composition of the image through infrared photography (used to detect sub-surface layers not visible to the naked eye).[25] He identified the moon, sun-rays and sash, stars and nahui olin, among other elements, as standard "International Gothic" additions, possibly from the second half of the 16th century.[26] The original image beneath these, namely the hands, face, blue mantle and rose-coloured robe, showed no underdrawing, sizing or overvarnish.[27]

In 1999 Leoncio Garza-Valdés of the University of Texas at San Antonio was engaged by the Archbishop of Mexico, Norberto Rivera Carrera, to undertaken a scientific study of the image using ultra-violet imaging.[16] Garza-Valdés' findings contradicted those by Callahan, finding three distinct layers involving all areas of the image, including those Callahan had identified as original. The oldest image, with striking similarities to the Spanish Lady of Guadalupe of Extremadura, shows a light-skinned Virgin carrying a child on her left arm. This layer bears the signature M.A. and the date 1556. A second Virgin has been painted over the first, and shows facial features of strong native American type. This second virgin was probably painted by Juan de Arrue around 1625.[16] The third image, the one currently visible, is painted 15 cm to the left of the second. Sample fibres given to Garza-Valdés proved to be of hemp and linen, not agave.[16]

The painting was examined again in 2002 by art restoration expert José Sol Rosales with stereo-microscopy (a technique used to identify pigments and the integrity of images). Rosales identified calcium sulfate, pine soot, white, blue, and green "tierras" (soil), reds made from carmine and other pigments, as well as gold, all consistent with 16th century materials and methods.[16] Despite Callahan's conclusion that the hands, face, mantle and robe could be identified as "original" and have never been painted, pigment has been applied to the highlight areas of the face sufficiently heavily as to obscure the texture of the underlying cloth, while the parting in the Virgin's hair is off-center, and her eyes, including the irises, have outlines, apparently applied by a brush; in addition there is obvious cracking and flaking of paint all along a vertical seam, and, in the robe's fold, what appear to be sketch lines, suggesting that the artist roughed out the figure before painting it.[28]

Cultural significance and Symbol of Mexico:

The flag carried by Miguel Hidalgo and his insurgent army.Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe is recognized as a symbol of all Catholic Mexicans. Miguel Sánchez, the author of the first Spanish language apparition account, identified Guadalupe as Revelation's Woman of the Apocalypse, and said:

"this New World has been won and conquered by the hand of the Virgin Mary...[who had] prepared, disposed, and contrived her exquisite likeness in this her Mexican land, which was conquered for such a glorious purpose, won that there should appear so Mexican an image."[5]

In 1810 Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla initiated the bid for Mexican independence with his Grito de Dolores, with the cry "Death to the Spaniards and long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!" When Hidalgo's mestizo-indigenous army attacked Guanajuato and Valladolid, they placed "the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which was the insignia of their enterprise, on sticks or on reeds painted different colors" and "they all wore a print of the Virgin on their hats."[29] After Hidalgo's death leadership of the revolution fell to a zambo/mestizo priest named Jose Maria Morelos, who led insurgent troops in the Mexican south. Morelos adopted the Virgin as the seal of his Congress of Chilpancingo, inscribing her feast day into the Chilpancingo constitution and declaring that Guadalupe was the power behind his victories:

"New Spain puts less faith in its own efforts than in the power of God and the intercession of its Blessed Mother, who appeared within the precincts of Tepeyac as the miraculous image of Guadalupe that had come to comfort us, defend us, visibly be our protection."[29]

Simón Bolívar noticed the Guadalupan theme in these uprisings, and shortly before Morelos' death in 1815 wrote: "...the leaders of the independence struggle have put fanaticism to use by proclaiming the famous Virgin of Guadalupe as the queen of the patriots, praying to her in times of hardship and displaying her on their flags...the veneration for this image in Mexico far exceeds the greatest reverence that the shrewdest prophet might inspire."[5] One of Morelos' officers, Felix Fernandez, would later become the first Mexican president, even changing his name to Guadalupe Victoria.[29]

In 1914, Emiliano Zapata's peasant army rose out of the south against the government of Porfirio Diaz. Though Zapata's rebel forces were primarily interested in land reform—"tierra y libertad" (land and liberty) was the slogan of the uprising—when his peasant troops penetrated Mexico City they carried Guadalupan banners.[30] More recently, the contemporary Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) named their "mobile city" in honor of the Virgin: it is called Guadalupe Tepeyac. EZLN spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos wrote a humorous letter in 1995 describing the EZLN bickering over what to do with a Guadalupe statue they had received as a gift.[31]

Mestizo culture:

"The Aztecs…had an elaborate, coherent symbolic system for making sense of their lives. When this was destroyed by the Spaniards, something new was needed to fill the void and make sense of New Spain…the image of Guadalupe served that purpose."[32]

Hernan Cortez, the Conquisador who overthrew the Aztec empire in 1521, was a native of Extremadura, home to Our Lady of Guadalupe. By the 16th century the Extremadura Guadalupe, a statue of the Virgin carved by Saint Luke the Evangelist, was already a national icon. It was found at the beginning of the 14th century when the Virgin appeared to a humble shepherd and ordered him to dig at the site of the apparition. The recovered Virgin then miraculously helped to expel the Moors from Spain, and her small shrine evolved into the great Guadalupe monastery. One of the more remarkable attributes of the Guadalupe of Extremadura is that she is dark, like the Americans, and thus she became the perfect icon for the missionaries who followed Cortez to convert the natives to Christianity.[18]

According to the traditional account, the name of Guadalupe was chosen by the Virgin herself when she appeared on the hill outside Mexico City in 1531, ten years after the Conquest.[33] According to secular history, Bishop Alonso de Montúfar, in the year 1555, commissioned a Virgin of Guadalupe from a native artist, who gave her the dark skin which his own people shared with the famous Extremadura Virgin.[18] Whatever the connection between the Mexican and her older Spanish namesake, the fused iconography of the Virgin and the indigenous Mexican goddess Tonantzin provided a way for 16th century Spaniards to gain converts among the indigenous population, while simultaneously allowing 16th century Mexicans to continue the practice of their native religion.[34]

Guadalupe continues to be a mixture of the cultures which blended to form Mexico, both racially and religiously,[35] "the first mestiza",[36] or "the first Mexican".[37] "bringing together people of distinct cultural heritages, while at the same time affirming their distinctness."[38] As Jacques Lafaye wrote in Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe, "...as the Christians built their first churches with the rubble and the columns of the ancient pagan temples, so they often borrowed pagan customs for their own cult purposes."[39] The author Judy King asserts that Guadalupe is a "common denominator" uniting Mexicans. Writing that Mexico is composed of a vast patchwork of differences—linguistic, ethnic, and class-based—King says "The Virgin of Guadalupe is the rubber band that binds this disparate nation into a whole."[37] The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes once said that "... you cannot truly be considered a Mexican unless you believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe."[40] Nobel Literature laureate Octavio Paz wrote in 1974 that "the Mexican people, after more than two centuries of experiments, have faith only in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery".[41]

Catholic Church and Beliefs and Miracles:

Catholic sources describe the many miraculous and supernatural properties of the image. The tilma has maintained its structural integrity over nearly 500 years, while replicas normally last only about 15 years before suffering degradation;[42] it repaired itself with no external help after a 1791 ammonia spill that did considerable damage, and in 1926 an anarchist bomb destroyed the altar, but left the icon unharmed.[43]

In 1929 and 1951 photographers found a figure reflected in the Virgin's eyes; upon inspection they said that the reflection was tripled in what is called the Purkinje effect, commonly found in human eyes.[44] An ophthalmologist, Dr. Jose Aste Tonsmann, later enlarged an image of the Virgin's eyes by 2500x and found not only the aforementioned single figure, but images of all the witnesses present when the tilma was first revealed before Zumaragga in 1531, plus a small family group of mother, father, and a group of children, in the center of the Virgin's eyes, fourteen persons in all.[45]

Numerous Catholic websites repeat an unsourced claim[43] that in 1936 biochemist Richard Kuhn analyzed a sample of the fabric and announced that the pigments used were from no known source, whether animal, mineral or vegetable.[45] Dr. Philip Serna Callahan, who photographed the icon under infrared light, discovered from his photographs that portions of the face, hands, robe, and mantle had been painted in one step, with no sketches or corrections and no visible brush strokes.[46]

Pontifical Pronouncements:

With the Brief Non est equidem of May 25, 1754, Pope Benedict XIV declared Our Lady of Guadalupe patron of what was then called New Spain, corresponding to Spanish Central and Northern America, and approved liturgical texts for the Holy Mass and the Breviary in her honor. Pope Leo XIII granted new texts in 1891 and authorized coronation of the image in 1895. Pope Pius X proclaimed her patron of Latin America in 1910. Pope Pius XII declared the Virgin of Guadalupe "Queen of Mexico and Empress of the Americas" in 1945, and "Patroness of the Americas" in 1946. Pope John XXIII invoked her as "Mother of the Americas" in 1961, referring to her as Mother and Teacher of the Faith of All American populations, and in 1966 Pope Paul VI sent a Golden Rose to the shrine.[47]

Pope John Paul II visited the shrine in the course of his first journey outside Italy as Pope from 26 to January 31, 1979, and again when he beatified Juan Diego there on May 6, 1990. In 1992 he dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe a chapel within St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. At the request of the Special Assembly for the Americas of the Synod of Bishops, he named Our Lady of Guadalupe patron of the Americas on January 22, 1999 (with the result that her liturgical celebration had, throughout the Americas, the rank of solemnity), and visited the shrine again on the following day.

On July 31, 2002, the Pope canonized Juan Diego before a crowd of 12 million, and later that year included in the General Calendar of the Roman Rite, as optional memorials, the liturgical celebrations of Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (December 9) and Our Lady of Guadalupe (December 12).[47]

Devotions:

The shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage destination in the world. Over the Friday and Saturday of 11 to 12 December 2009, a record number of 6.1 million pilgrims visited the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City to commemorate the anniversary of the apparition.[48]

The Virgin of Guadalupe is considered the Patroness of Mexico and the Continental Americas; she is also venerated by Native Americans, on the account of the devotion calling for the conversion of the Americas. Replicas of the tilma can be found in thousands of churches throughout the world, and numerous parishes bear her name.

Notes:

1.^ EWTN.com
2.^ Marys-Touch.com
3.^ CatholicFreeShipping.com
4.^ Britannica.com
5.^ a b c d e Brading, D.A. Mexican Phoenix. Our Lady of Guadalupe: Image and Tradition Across Five Centuries. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2001.
6.^ Elizondo, Virgil. Guadalupe, Mother of a New Creation. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1997
7.^ UTPA.edu, "La Virgen de Guadalupe", accessed 30 November 2006
8.^ Tonantzin Guadalupe, by Joaquín Flores Segura, Editorial Progreso, 1997, ISBN 9706411453, 9789706411457, p. 66-77
9.^ a b Taylor, William B. (1979). Drinking, Homicide, and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages. Stanford: Stanford University Press
10.^ Del Maguey, Single Village Mezcal. "What if Pulque?". http://www.mezcal.com/pulque.html. Retrieved 11 September 2009.
11.^ Bushnell, John (1958). "La Virgen de Guadalupe as Surrogate Mother in San Juan Aztingo". American Anthropologist 60 (2): 261
12.^ G. Lee (1913). "Shrine of Guadalupe". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
13.^ English translation of the account in Nahuatl
14.^ D. A. Brading, "Mexican Phoenix: Our Lady of Guadalupe" (Cambridge University Press, 2001) pp.1-2
15.^ Poole, Stafford. Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531-1797. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997.
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19.^ D. A. Brading, "Mexican Phoenix: Our Lady of Guadalupe" (Cambridge University Press, 2001) p.5
20.^ Sousa, Lisa; Stafford Poole, and James Lockhart (trans. and trans.) (1998). The Story of Guadalupe: Luis Laso de la Vega's Huei tlamahuiçoltica of 1649. UCLA Latin American studies, vol. 84; Nahuatl studies series, no. 5. Stanford & Los Angeles, California: Stanford University Press, UCLA Latin American Center Publications. ISBN 0-8047-3482-8. OCLC 39455844 pp.42–47)
21.^ Juan Diego y las Apariciones el pimo Tepeyac (Paperback) by Joaquín García Icazbalceta ISBN 9709277138
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36.^ Lopez, Lydia. "'Undocumented Virgin.' Guadalupe Narrative Crosses Borders for New Understanding." Episcopal News Service. December 10, 2004.
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38.^ O'Connor, Mary. "The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Economics of Symbolic Behavior." The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. Vol. 28, Issue 2. p. 105-119. 1989.
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49.^ CBConline.org, "Our Lady of Guadalupe parish church now an Archdiocesan Shrine"