La Milagrosa Guadalupana
After the Marian apparition of 1531 in Mexico City, her miraculous image was left on the Tilma (cloak) of Juan Diego. This blog post briefly describes the most important historical, scientific & symbolic aspects of this image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is seen as complementary to the famous Shroud of Turin. Enjoy!
• The Aztecs had no experimental science, wheel or arch in architecture, but did have a capital with 300 thousand inhabitants. Already several centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards they expected that a 'white god' from the east would come. In the 15th century they also had a tower, without idol, built for an unknown, omnipresent and life-giving God; at the same time all their other gods looked extremely sad (even that of joy?!) and sometimes as many as 20,000 warriors were sacrificed for them. In 1509 the emperor's sister had a dream that ships with crosses on the sails would bring the true God, and after Halley's comet of 1531 they expected a new era to start.
• The following December 12, the Aztec Juan Diego, after Mary appeared to him four times, presented non-native Castilian roses to the bishop of Mexico City. This was the requested sign as proof of the authenticity of the apparitions. When Juan Diego opened his Tilma, the miraculous image suddenly appeared on it; moreover, his uncle was miraculously cured at that time.
• The chapel that Mary requested was built within two weeks; when it was inaugurated, a dead man was brought back to life.
• Practically overnight the Aztecs stopped their practices of human sacrifice, cannibalism (sometimes people were even devoured alive) and polygamy; in less than ten years almost ten million Aztecs converted (for comparison, this was fifty times as many as the ten years before and in those same years the Reformation made five million Europeans leave the Catholic faith). A priest testified that, together with another person, he had baptized and confirmed more than 14 thousand people in just five days time; and the Flemish Franciscan Peter van Gent baptized a million Mexicans with his own hands. And the rest of the American continent followed the Mexican example. N.B. image history when it had remained hostile?!
• A well that has healed many sick people originated on the spot of the last apparition when the bishop asked Juan Diego about where it was.
• A typhoid plague suddenly stopped in 1545 after a children's pilgrimage; in 1629 a four-year during flood came upon the city after a vision of the 'Guadalupana' by a sister indicating this as a punishment for sins; an epidemic of the plague ceased in 1736 after the proclamation of Our Lady from Guadalupe as patroness of Mexico; also in that year December 12 was declared a holiday following which a sister suddenly rose from her deathbed; before in 1754 the Guadalupan church was connected with the Lateran Basilica, a necessary but lost book from 1681 suddenly resurfaced.
• Nitric acid was spilled on the Tilma in 1785, but left no damage behind; the stain that was left is slowly fading away.
• A bomb went off close to the Tilma in 1921 and strongly bent an iron cross that stood near; the Tilma itself was not damaged at all (the Son protecting the Mother?!).
• When the new basilica was opened in 1976 (one of the world's largest), the tilting of the old basilica stopped which had started around 1972 when it was desecrated by an American filmmaker.
• On the day that Mexico legalized abortion in 2007, people observed a light in the form of an embryo shining from the womb of Our Lady of Guadalupe (see picture).
Science
∗ There is no decay of the original Tilma after 485 years despite that it hung on a damp wall for over 100 years, was touched by millions of pilgrims, many votive candles burned under it, the swamps of Mexico City spread a corrosive dampness and that the two parts are held together by only 1 cotton thread; copies on the same material on the other hand disintegrate within 20 years. Yet, the (added!) golden rays and crown have slowly disappeared, as well as the silvering of the moon, while the original remains.
∗ The Tilma has a silky softness despite existing out off raw fiber; besides, these threads are used to give the image a 3D impression (especially the face), as it is with the Shroud.
∗ No primer, underpaint or paint strips can be detected with infrared techniques; so the image is not painted and the pigments could not even have adhered to the Tilma; moreover, those are of unknown origin.
∗ The image is of a photographic nature according to Kodak (1963) and brighter/more impressive at a distance than up close.
∗ The Tilma also exhibits a light effect, called iridescence, that is present in nature, but cannot be imitated.
∗ Both the eye structure, as well as the number and deformation of the reflections in both eyes are like in living eyes; in 1956 & 1962 three persons were discovered and identified (using a painting from 1533 that had reappeared in 1960); at the time of the appearance of the image those were present in the room of the bishop; in the 1990s this number has been increased to 13 people (see images).
∗ All the visible stars (and the moon) on her mantle are placed at the correct place in the sky at the time of the apparition; moreover the flowers on her tunic form a topological map of the hills of central Mexico. The apparition hill Tepeyac is symbolized by a bare rock with heavenly flowers (see also the next section on symbolism).
Symbolism
✓ Experts declare that the image (which radiates a great purity) is much more appealing than the Mona Lisa. Four different painting styles are used, which normally do not go together, but here add to her beauty. There is no comparable image, in short it is miraculous.
✓ The Woman blocks (is clothed with) the sun, has the moon under her feet ("Mexico" incidentally means in the middle of the moon), has stars on her blue-green cloak and comes in the middle of the clouds; all this indicates to the Aztecs that she comes from heaven with power over their gods.
✓ At the same time she bows, looks down and is praying, so no goddess; the cross she carries points to Christianity. For Catholics, she is unequivocally the Woman from the Apocalypse chapter 12.
✓ Both the star map on her mantle (which b.t.w. is inverted as if seen from outside the universe) and the topological map on her red tunic (which, besides, indicates her earthly origin) are aligned so that her head points toward Jerusalem.
✓ From the visible stars on the Tilma other constellations can be extrapolated: Corona (crown) on her head, Virgo (virgin) on her chest and Leo (the Lion of Judah) on her womb (see last image).
✓ A special flower, Nahui-ollin, symbolizes the Creator and is also placed on her womb. Within the bud of the flower the face of a baby waking up has even been observed.
✓ The ribbon around her waist indicates that she is pregnant, the shape of it again points to the Creator.
✓ The 'angel' (messenger) below, connecting the heavenly mantle and the earthy tunic, refers to Juan Diego whose Aztec name means “the eagle that speaks.” N.B. Juan is Spanish for John whose gospel is symbolised by an eagle too.
✓ She is a mestiza, of mixed Spanish-Aztec blood, thus connecting these peoples. “Guadalupe” (also a place of pilgrimage in Spain) is Arabic for “river/guide of heavenly blessings”; a similar Aztec word means "who crushes the serpent" (the most monstrous of their gods).
✓ the first copy of the image sent to Europe was present at the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571 and the miraculous victory that saved christian Europe attributed to the Guadalupana.
the new (left) and old (right) sanctuary in Mexico City
Conclusion
It can be said that the Guadalupana expresses (the majority of) the Catholic teaching about Mary, miraculously and in secular/pagan language:
∆ mother of God (Nahui-ollin and Leo on her womb),
∆ always virgin (Virgo on her chest),
∆ heaven's queen (Corona on her head),
∆ immaculate conception (with heavenly mantle),
∆ taken up into heaven (in the midst of clouds),
∆ advocate (in prayer), mediatrix (before the sun), co-redemptrix (standing on pagan gods, 'crushes the serpent') [NB those are approved but not yet dogmatically defined titles of Mary]
Mary: “Am I not here, I who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my cloak, in my crossed arms? Do you need anything else? Let nothing else worry you, upset you.”
the red stars on the mantle (and the moon) are all in the right place, the extrapolated black stars are not visible on the tilma
Main Resources
Luis Fernando Castañeda Monter, theologian, mariologist & member of the Higher Institute of Studies of Guadalupe in Mexico City, see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMG-7naKeTs
Francis Johnston, The Miracle of Guadalupe (NL translation 1991, with extensive references)
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