While staying in the pueblo where Manny grew up, we were awakened at 5 AM, every morning by quarter-sticks of dynamite set off by faithful devotees making a novena to the Virgin. This was followed shortly thereafter by vigorous tolling of the church bells. On some mornings, though closer to 6 AM, a small marching band of schoolchildren would assemble and process from just outside our hotel room to the church located in the plaza, about 9 blocks away. On the actual feast day a great mass of people congregates in order to parade to the plaza and to Mass. Some carry statues of the Virgin, some carry signs, and some will make the trip on their knees. One special young lady is chosen to represent the Virgin herself, and is dressed to resemble the image of Guadalupe in green and rose colored robes. Other children are dressed up as indios, wearing the traditional indigenous dress of their particular region.
A brief history of the apparition of Guadalupe, courtesy of Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe), is as follows:
“According to traditional Catholic accounts of the Guadalupan apparition, during a walk from his village to the city on December 9, 1531, Juan Diego [a poor, indigenous man] saw a vision of a Virgin at the Hill of Tepeyac [in Mexico City]. Speaking in Nahuatl, [the Aztec language] Our Lady of Guadalupe asked him to build an abbey at that site. When Juan Diego spoke to the Spanish bishop, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, he asked him for a miraculous sign to prove his claim. The Virgin asked Juan Diego to gather flowers, even though it was winter when no flower bloomed. He found Castillian roses, gathered them on his tilma, [cloak] and presented these to bishop Zumárraga. When he presented the roses to Zumárraga, the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe miraculously appeared imprinted on the cloth.”
Mexico is an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, but it is a very syncretistic Roman Catholicism that holds sway there. The Hill of Tepeyac in Mexico City mentioned above is home to the Basilica of Guadalupe and its stunningly beautiful gardens. Tepeyac also happened to be the place where the Aztec mother goddess Tonantzin was worshipped. In 1996, the abbot of the Guadalupe shrine was defrocked by the cardinal of Mexico City for saying that Juan Diego never truly existed, implying that the Guadalupe account was a myth intended to transfer the faith of the indigenous people from one goddess figure to another. The coincidence does not end with Guadalupe. Many prominent church buildings or shrines to particular saints were built on ground once dedicated to indigenous gods or goddesses.
The devotion of the people to the Virgin is fervent and pervasive. What saddens me so much is that the devotion is so terribly misplaced. When I did a semester abroad closer to Mexico City, I witnessed men and women crawling to the Basilica on their knees, coming to make their supplications or in thanksgiving for a favor supposedly granted by the Virgin. The Basilica itself is a church building devoid of Jesus and full of Mary. Many people will go to church their entire lives but will only know their Savior’s mother instead of their Savior. While Mary deserves high esteem for her role as Mother of God, that esteem should never eclipse nor replace the fount and source of every blessing, the One that she bore so that through His death and resurrection, we may have everlasting life.
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