All Rosary Makers

Dec. 12, is the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of the Americas.  On this day, people all over North, Central and South America celebrate the anniversary of the apparition in 1531 that converted the vast majority of Aztec and other indigenous people of Mexico and the connecting Spanish speaking countries, to Christain belief.

Although the story of the apparition sounds unbelievable to those unfamiliar with the facts, there remains a relic from the event unlike any other in history.  The tilma (a vegetable-woven cape worn by peasants) that is such a central part of the story, has remained virtually unchanged with vibrant colors for over 480 years despite an environment of acidic urban pollution that has eroded the very stone of the cathedral that was built to protect this relic.

Scientific investigation over the last 30 years by non-believing experts using the latest in diagnostic techniques have declared the image " ...cannot be explained by known scientific methods."  www.examiner.com/roman-catholic-in-houston/our-lady-of-guadalupe-completely-beyond-scientific-explanation    

From a social viewpoint, something seismic had to occur to convert, within a few short years, millions of indigenous people to Christianity.  Before the apparition, very few native people were converting to the beliefs of the europeans because of fear and animosity toward their conquerors.  

In the year 1531, in Mexico, the apparition first appeared on December 12, to a poor Aztec man named Cuauhtlatoatzin (in the native language), known to the Spanish as Juan Diego.  The apparition was of a " ...young Lady calling herself the mother of the true God."  According to Juan Diego, the Lady told him to " ...go to the bishop and tell him I want him to build a Cathedral on this spot," (a hill in the Tepeyac desert five miles north of Mexico City at that time).  

When Juan appeared before the bishop, he was dismissed and told by the bishop to " ...tell this lady to send me a sign to prove she is who you say."

Juan Diego returned to the Lady and she told him where to find nearby, a large number of Castilian roses in full bloom to bring to the Bishop as a sign (this from a desert region at high altitude in early winter).  When Juan opened his tilma in front of the bishop and let the roses fall at his feet, the bishop fell to his knees not because of the out-of-season roses, but because the inside of the tilma has an image of the Lady on it.

It is this image on the tilma that is today on display in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico and is the source of veneration (and examination) even beyond the Western Hemisphere.  

In trying to understand the mass conversion of millions of native people within only a few years after this apparition, it is important to know that the tilma's image has codes incorporated in its design that are well known to the native Mexicans at that time.  

These codes give a message in ways similar to the Aztec pictographic language that indigenous people alone recognized as speaking directly to them.  The codes clearly define this image and the "Lady" as from heaven, although she prays to one greater than she.  Also the codes imply that the Lady's message urges them to abandon their old religion and embrace the teachings of Christianity to love one another.  

The image and the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of love for all people, the poorest, the downtrodden, the "...least of these," in the words of Jesus and so is intrinsically connected to Jesus' teaching to "love one another as I have loved you."  The image is also interpreted as a sign of human fertility and protection of the  "...least of these," the innocent child carried by a mother-to-be before the baby's birth.

Dec. 12, 2011 is the day celebrating the 480th anniversary of that first apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the subsequent events that are venerated throughout the Americas and the world.