The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe as she appears on Juan Diego's cloak which now hangs in the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City
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I found myself in a tide of pilgrims advancing toward the world's second most visited holy site on its busiest day of the year. We were drawn by the spiritual gravity of one of the most tender and compelling stories in Christian history. The story dates back to 1531 and a modest indigenous peasant on a little hill in Mexico.
By 1531, colonization and Christianization of the "New World" were in their early stages of devastation. Christ had first been made known --in Columbian guise-- to the indigenous peoples of the "New World" four short decades before. Following the arrival of Christ, conquest and conversion had progressed rapidly.
Then Mary his mother appeared. But she appeared on her own terms --her own humble, gentle, dark-skinned terms. No ships, no guns, no flags to plant. She came with roses and words of mercy. She left only an image on the dusty cactus-cloth cloak of a poor commoner, and an irresistible story of upside-down drama.
The Divine Drama
On the hill called Tepeyac the Holy Mother appeared to a devout peasant. Juan Diego was his Christian Spanish name, though he spoke his mother tongue Nahuatl. He was a widower with no children. An ordinary humble man who happened to hear other --worldly birds singing and a voice call to him as he passed the hill.
We children of the scientific era are programmed to dismiss such accounts as empirical impossibility. If we do this we miss the spiritual inspiration millions have drawn from Juan Diego's account. His story speaks to a place beyond scientific constructs --a point beyond possibility. It speaks on its own terms.
On the rocky crest of the hill, Mary spoke softly and simply to Juan in his native tongue. She declared her mission as one of compassion and protection. She asked Juan to instruct the bishop to build a chapel for her on the hill.
The bishop brushed Juan off. So Juan went back up the hill suggesting Mary send someone of greater societal stature. But Mary had chosen him. So he returned to the bishop a second time. Meeting the same sceptical response, the peasant vowed the next time he would return with a sign.
Back on the hill he told Mary of his predicament. She sent him to pick roses among the stony crags, even though it was mid-December, a time of year when roses are a natural impossibility in that region. These out-of-season roses would be his sign. And indeed, Juan returned to the bishop with a glorious bouquet of Rosas de Castilla under his dusty cloak. When Juan opened his cloak to reveal the divine roses to the bishop, an image of Mary, as he had seen her, appeared miraculously on the inside of his cloak.
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The Basilica of Guadalupe, at the base of Tepeyac Hill in Mexico City
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With this image on a poor peasants' cloak, new possibilities for the history of the New World also came into view.
A chapel was built for Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of the Americas on the hill. Today a handful of chapels and churches dot the hill, which is now surrounded by the sprawl of Mexico City. Among the buildings is the Basilica in which the 475-year-old cactus cloth cloak (which inexplicably defies decay) with its stunning, tender image is displayed.
The image itself --so common throughout much of Latin America-- is of Mary as she appeared to Juan Diego. Her skin is of a shade more indigenous than European. The stars on her cloak, the crescent moon under her feet and other parts of the image would have found immediate symbolic resonance with the indigenous people of the time.
The indigenous relevance of the image has spiritual as well as historic importance. Some Catholic historians cast Mary's appearance as a big boost to the conversion campaign of the day. The Aztec empire of the region had fallen in 1521, Mary appeared in 1531 and by 1541 a reported nine million indigenous people had joined the Catholic ranks. These historians would align Mary with the conquistadors who "Christianized" a continent, in the process violently baptizing it in the blood of millions of the land's inhabitants.
But her image could hardly be more different than that of the conquistadors immortalized and immoralized in bronze statues throughout the Americas. She stands reverent, quiet, dignified. Hers is a gentle, beautiful power. I believe she came not to accelerate colonial history, but to redeem it. Her agenda had more to do with indigenous protection than Catholic expansionism. Her message was less a call to embrace Judeo-Christianity than a comforting whisper to a people caught between Aztec society (with its heathen human sacrifices) and European society (with its colonial human sacrifices).
The mighty men of history have left their mark in the officialdom of textbooks and place names (including the district that is the epicentre of super-powerdom). Mary has found her place in the hearts of commoners in countries where history has been against them since Columbus first arrived with sword and Bible.
Catholic Pow-Wow
Indigenous dancers outside the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City
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A few years ago, I was at Tepeyac on December 12, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Inside the Basilica at the base of the hill were dozens of robed ecclesiastic authorities. On the little chapel atop the hill a stream of quiet faithful filed through. And in the huge square outside the Basilica was a scene I could only describe as a big Mexican Catholic Pow-Wow. Ten or so groups of singers and dancers in full indigenous regalia, simultaneously enacting their homage to the saint; claiming her as their own, and doing so on their own terms.
As immigrant peoples in the Americas --or Turtle Island, as many indigenous people know it-- we live on ill-gotten land. Our homes and churches stand on land once home to others. Our spiritual histories must address this reality with honesty, grace, and compassion.
When I look at my postcard version of Our Lady of Guadalupe set beside my bed --as I often do-- I see a quiet and compelling invitation to redeem the historical legacy of colonialism in our lands and in our hearts. I let the image sink in. I let it inform my attitude to history and indigenous people, inspiring me to be as much like Our Lady of Guadalupe in posture and tone, and as little like the messianic conquistadors as possible.
Will Braun is editor of Geez [www.geezmagazine.org] magazine. He lives in Winnipeg, Canada, the ancestral and current land of the Anishinaabe people. He has worked extensively with indigenous peoples impacted by resource development in northern Canada.
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