OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE IS STILL A SYMBOL OF HOPE
The so-called Guadalupe Event occurred in December 1531, just 10 years after the fall of Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital. Some 489 years later, this occurrence continues to have relevance for all of us who inhabit these lands. The year 2020 has been extraordinarily difficult, given the COVID-19 pandemic, immigration policies involving the United States and countries south of it, social unrest sparked by racism, natural disasters and economic disparity that benefits the most rich and discards the most poor.
Our Lady of Guadalupe arrived in a moment of great anxiety for the native peoples of this continent. Their culture, their cities and their way of life had been destroyed. Creation, as they knew it, was ending. María of Guadalupe brought them hope and strength. The color of her skin and her clothing were familiar. She spoke their native tongue. She presented herself as the mother of the true God, a God of all that was most near and far away. Her image stamped on Juan Diego’s cloak is a codex that they understood easily. She brought a new sun, while the old one was dying. A new creation was dawning. A new faith was starting to take root. A new race was being born, the mestizo race made of native and European blood.
Our Lady of Guadalupe gave dignity back to the native peoples. When Juan Diego told her that she should send someone else to ask that a temple be built at Tepeyac to honor her because no one had believed him, she responded that, though she could call on others, she wanted him to deliver the message. She demonstrated a profound love for Juan Diego, calling him “my smallest son,” “my most defenseless,” “my dearest Juan.”
Immigrants, the suffering, the poor and those who experience firsthand the throwaway culture find in María a reason to keep fighting, to not give up. She is a mother and understands the suffering of the smallest, the most defenseless. She continues to tell those who suffer from discrimination and systemic racism, “I chose you because you have dignity.” She lovingly reminds us that we are all sons and daughters of God. We all have the same dignity. No one is better or superior than everyone else.
At the time of her apparition, the natives were living their own pandemic from diseases the invaders had brought. In fact, Juan Diego’s uncle, Juan Bernardino, was dying of smallpox. In that time of uncertainty, of fear, of death, María’s maternal words continue to touch our hearts: “Hear and understand me, my smallest son, nothing should scare you or aff lict you, or trouble your heart, do not fear that disease, nor any other one, or feel anxiety. Aren’t I here who is your Mother?”
In the years I have worked with farm workers and other working-class families, most of them migrants, I have been touched by their deep faith in
Our Lady. Many times I encountered people who told me that before beginning their trek north, they had gone to her shrine or had entrusted themselves before her image, praying for her protection. I remember one woman who told me that before deciding whether to marry her husband, she went to ask “Lupita,” as Our Lady of Guadalupe is lovingly called, for her counsel to make the right decision.
Many of us turn to Our Lady of Guadalupe precisely because we feel her so close, and we see her as a true mother. We learn that from the time we’re little, when our own mothers dress us in little traditional native suits to celebrate her day. And even before we’re aware of her, our mothers take us before her image in gratitude for having been born, and to entrust us her protection under her cloak.
Each year, on Dec. 12, the altars built to honor Our Lady are filled with roses brought as a gift, in remembrance of the Guadalupe event. The roses that Juan Diego picked speak to us of heaven here on Earth, and of the truth of the message from the Mother of God: That with divine help and our own effort, Tepeyac — in other words, our own reality — with all of its thistle and thorns, can be transformed into a garden of roses. Her beautiful image, stamped on cactus fabric, is for us a constant reminder of that message. Every year, when I see an altar covered with dozens and dozens of roses, I feel that heaven is here on Earth. Viva our Lady of Guadalupe!
Bejarano