Our Lady Of Guadalupe

[MrsFrozen]

I posted this in the Q&A section, thought I would post it here, too..

Recently, I have heard that the church-approved apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a hoax, that Juan Diego probably never existed, and that the cloth with the image of Mary on it is just a painting. Can you shed any light on this? Thank you.

[SJRod55]

This is not true. In fact there are no records of Juan Diego's birth but there are a lot regarding the latter part of his life including a death certificate. So there is no 'doubt' regarding the existance of Juan Diego. As for the appearance of the Virgin de Guadalupe that is faith based and therefore cannot be disporived as such. They are some excellent articles regarding the true story behind Juan Diego and his visitation from the Blessed Virgin.

I for one, having lived in Mexico and having two Mexican children can testify that the Virgin of Guadalupe and the whole story regarding Juan Diego is true. I have had my prayers answered by the Blessed Virgin and know that she is always present.

[dairygirl4u2c]

Plus you would want to look into the claim that the cloth has images in Mary's eyes, reflections of things, that are at a minute detail in the cloth.

[HeavenlyCalling]

Also, the cloth was made out of woven catus fiber, a material that usually falls apart within 20 years, but our Lady is still very much in one piece.

[SJRod55]

[quote]our Lady is still very much in one piece.[/quote]

And worthy of a visit to see

[SJRod55]

Other resources include the following:

[quote]Historicity
Juan Diego Cuahtlatoatzin, the “seer” Indio of Santa Maria di Guadalupe, was born, it seems, around 1474 and died in 1548. Some primitive indigenous Guadalupan sources–and later “Spanish” ones–call him explicitly an “ambassador-messenger” of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He was beatified in the Basilica of Guadalupe on May 6, 1990, by John Paul II during his second apostolic journey to Mexico.

The history of the cause of beatification is closely tied to the event in Guadalupe. From a juridical point of view, the process began in 1666. In 1894, the Mexican bishops obtained from the Sacred Congregation for the Rites (now the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments) the concession for the canonical coronation of the Virgin of Guadalupe. In the early decades of the twentieth century, the bishops of Mexico and many other parts of the world solicited from Pius X, and later Pius XI, the proclamation of the Virgin of Guadalupe as patron saint of the American continent and the Philippines. Starting in 1974, the presumed fifth centenary of Juan Diego’s birth, the Mexican bishops began asking for his canonization, later joined by those of Latin America.

Beatification aroused debate about the historicity of the event in Guadalupe and even of Juan Diego himself. For this reason, at the beginning of 1998 the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints appointed an historical commission charged with studying more deeply the problems of its history.

Documents and results
Some of the results of this study appeared in the book I edited with E Chávez Sánchez and JL Guerrero Rosado, El encuentro de la Virgen de Guadalupe y Juan Diego (The Encounter of the Virgin of Guadalupe with Juan Diego). The book presents a series of documents from various sources that converge to confirm the event in Guadalupe. We made a careful critical examination of these documents, offering also some reasonable hypotheses to explain certain voids, such as the already mentioned “Guadalupan silence” of some sixteenth-century ecclesiastical and civilian figures. The historical and literary sources emerge basically from three distinct cultural matrixes: “strictly Indian and indigenous,” “Spanish and European,” and “mestizo.”

- Indigenous sources

Among the indigenous sources, the major one is the Nican Mopohua, attributed to the Indio writer Antonio Valeriano (1520-1606), about whose authorship, today, the best scholars have no doubts. The document is in the form of poetry; it is a particularly valuable testimony of the cultural metamorphosis of the Christianity of New Spain.

Antonio Valeriano’s poem was made known in the Náhuatl language by Lasso de la Vega in 1649. In this Náhuatl text, what stands out most–as already observed by the Náhuatl historian A Maria Garibay–is the extraordinary message of Mary’s spiritual motherhood, especially toward the poor and derelict.

Every word of the 218 lines of the Nican Mopohua finds its meaning within the Náhuatl philosophical and mythological universe, just as it does in the Christian one. The complexity and breadth of the Náhuatl view of the cosmos, as well as the profound intention of Christian acculturation on the part of the missionaries, are topics that demand close knowledge and study.

- Metizo sources

We call “mixed Indio-Spanish” or “metizo” the sources where we find a determinant metizo element or a cultural mixture–because of the author, as in the case of Fernando de Alva Ixtlixóchitl (a descendant of Spanish and native blood); or because a Spanish and an Indio author jointly signed the same document, as in the Códice Esclada (signed by the Indio Antonio Valeriano and the Spaniard Fra Bernardino de Sahagún); or the language used (Náhuatl as in the Códice Esclada); or because of other elements that indicate the presence of a cultural blend, that is no longer either the pure pre-Hispanic indigenous element or the imported Spanish one.

- Spanish sources

As to the Spanish and European sources in general, the sixteenth century documents “of Spanish provenance” in favor of Guadalupe are numerous. However, here too we find the same problems in reading the documents coming from Indio or metizo sources and written in Náhuatl or Castilian.

El encuentro de la Virgen de Guadalupe y Juan Diego presents and analyzes “Guadalupan” documents from the middle of the sixteenth century, from about 1555, to 1630. Especially valuable are the Acts of the Chapter of the Cathedral of Mexico for the years 1568 and 1569; the so-called map of Uppsala; some primitive iconographical testimony; requests for indulgences and privileges; concessions of grace from the Holy See starting with Pope Gregory XIII that demonstrate the importance of the sanctuary of Guadalupe in the vice-royalty of New Spain; and finally, the testimony of Jesuits concerning Our Lady of Guadalupe.

- Unpublished documents

New documents, the fruit of archival research, are enriching the studies on the historicity of Guadalupe and the figure of Juan Diego. Outstanding among these are documents–still unpublished–found in the archives of the ancient convent of Corpus Christi in Mexico City which refer to legal proof of “pure blood” and descent from caciques (native chiefs of Central and South America) of two candidates for the monastery who declared they were descendants of the seer Juan Diego.

Research in another archive unknown to scholars until very recently–in the ancient Dominican convent of San Vicente Ferrer Chimalhuacán (founded in 1529)–has resulted in the discovery of important material concerning the early years of the conquest and some of its protagonists, both Indios and Spaniards. In this material, we find Juan Diego’s cultural and family environment, closely tied with the site and foundation of the convent.

Mother of all
What influence did the Event in Guadalupe have in Mexico from the dawn of evangelization? It is perceived as the affirmation of Mary’s motherhood toward everyone: Indios, metizos, and Spaniards.

In light of the historical documentation and religious anthropology, the newly baptized Indios venerate, with the title of Virgin of Guadalupe, the historical person of Mary of Nazareth, Mother of Jesus, the Word Incarnate in her womb. According to the earliest Guadalupan documents, Guadalupe is an historical event. This historicity fills with content a symbol that makes a practice and a Marian devotion of the import of Guadalupe reasonable. Guadalupe, in the documented tradition, is bound up with the Indio Juan Diego, even if he certainly does not occupy the main position in many documents. This is given to Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Mystery of her Son which she reveals. But this “secondary” role of Juan Diego as humble ambassador absolutely is not tantamount to denying his existence, which is demonstrated by the convergent sources concerning the event.[/quote]

source: [url="http://www.traces-cl.com/july02/thestory.htm"]http://www.traces-cl.com/july02/thestory.htm[/url]

Also

[quote]PROOFS OF MEXICAN INDIAN JUAN DIEGO'S EXISTENCE
Disclosures from Commission Studying Historicity of Guadalupe Event

ROME, DEC 19 (ZENIT).- Due to statements by Fr. William Schulenburg, former Abbot of the Basilica of Guadalupe, denying the historicity of Juan Diego, the Indian who saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Vatican has sponsored a detailed study, the results of which are now avilable. Fr. Schulenburg stated that the canonization of Juan Diego would be ridiculous as there is no proof of his existence.

This statement, made on various occasions by the former Abbot, has been made for ages by other personalities. On April 18, 1794, Spanish academic Juan Bautista Muñoz, maintained for the first time that the Guadalupe event lacked historical basis. If such claims are true, they would mean that on May 6, 1990, John Paul II beatified a ghost, created by excitable Mexican religiosity, not to mention the fact that the Guadalupe apparitions themselves would lose all credibility.

Professor Fr. Fidel Gonzalez Fernandez, who teaches Church History at the Pontifical Urban and Gregorian Universities, and is recognized as one of the leading experts in the field, was named president of the Vatican Commission, which engaged some 30 researchers of various nationalities. The Commission made a decisive contribution not only to justify Juan Diego's historicity, but also to shed new light on Mexico's history. Fr. Gonzalez discussed the results of this work during an extraordinary congress held in the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints on October 28, 1998, obtaining positive success in resolving the doubts presented by the historical dimension.

Perhaps one of the most original works of Fr. Gonzalez, who was assisted in his research by other members of the Commission, such as Eduardo Chavez Sanchez and Jose Luis Guerrero Rosado (Cf. "The Meeting of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Juan Diego," Editorial Porrua, Mexico, 1999, pp. 564) is the presentation of 27 Guadalupe Indian documents and testimonies and 8 of mixed Spanish-Indian origin. Outstanding among them is "El Nican Mopohua" and the so-called "Escalada" Manuscript.

"El Nican Mopohua," written by Indian Antonio Valeriano, is a singular testimony of the process of transculturation of Christianity in New Spain. However, the question regarding the historicity of its content and the degree of literary embellishment or cultural background, continues to be vehemently debated. Each word of the 218 verses of "Nican Mopohua" has meaning within the Nahuas philosophy and mythology as well as in Christian philosophy. Being a literary text, it has no historical value; however, it offers the testimony of the Indian cosmovision of the time, something far more important for that culture than a dated chronicle would have been.

Moreover, its author -- an Indian of the pure Tecpaneca race -- was a witness, as he lived between 1520 and 1606. Historians assert that he was a nephew of emperor Montezuma. In 1533, at 13 years of age, which testifies to the impressive work carried out by the missionaries, this Indian already began studies at the Holy Cross School of Tlatelolco, founded by Bishop Juan de Zumarraga. He was, therefore, one of the first Indians to speak Latin and governor of Azcapotzalco for 35 years. He was 11 years old in 1531, the year of the apparitions, and 28 in 1548, when Juan Diego died.

The "Escalada" Manuscript, signed by Indian Antonio Valeriano and Spanish Friar Bernardino de Sahagun, which has been recently discovered, is a direct testimony of Juan Diego's historicity, as it has a type "death certificate" of the Indian.

Given that historical documents related to the 20 years that followed the Guadalupe apparitions have not been found to date, those who are opposed say that this documentary "silence" is proof that they did not exist. What is forgotten, however, is that many Indian sources were destroyed, as two indisputable authorities of earliest times -- Friar Bernardino de Sahagun and Geronimo de Mendieta declare. Moreover, one must not ignore other historical facts like the fire of the Mexico City Archives in 1692 and the so-called "paper crisis" that overwhelmed New Spain for a long time and made necessary -- as normal procedure, the recycling of used paper, including of documents in archives, for new purposes either in business or writing.

Unanswered Questions
Opponents of the apparitions, however, cannot explain with historical elements some decisive aspects of Mexican history without keeping in mind the miracle of Guadalupe. As, for example, the time when after a dramatic conquest and three painful divisions and clashes in the heart of the Nahuatl political realm, a hermitage was built immediately, dedicated to the Virgin Mary under the title Guadalupe on the hill of Tepeyac, a significant location of the Indian world.

Nor do they explain how Guadalupe became a sign of a new religious history and a crossroads between two worlds which, until that moment, were in dramatic opposition.

The historicity of the Blessed has been so well established that Fr. Fidel Gonzalez, the president of the Commission established by the Roman Congregation for the Causes of Saints, is studying Juan Diego's social origins. It is not known whether he was a noble or "poor" Indian. This confusion is caused by the Spanish translations of "Nican Mopohua."

There are many other historical proofs of Juan Diego's existence as, for example, the oral tradition, decisive source in studying Mexican peoples, whose culture is primarily oral. This tradition, in such cases tends to follow well established rules and, in the case of Guadalupe, it always confirms the historical and spiritual figure of Juan Diego.
ZE99121909 [/quote]

see: [url="http://www.zenit.org/english/archive/9912/ZE991219.html#item5"]http://www.zenit.org/english/archive/9912/...1219.html#item5[/url]

[MrsFrozen]

Thank you so much for your responses!

[franciscanheart]

Fabulous repsonses everyone.

[N/A Gone]

[quote]On December 12, 1531, the Blessed Virgin appeared at Tepeyac, Mexico, to Juan Diego and requested that a church building be erected there. Juan Diego presented himself to the local bishop, carrying a cloak on which an image of the Virgin had been inexplicably imprinted. Two years later, a church was erected there and in 1555 a feast was established in honor of the church’s patroness, Our Lady of Guadalupe. By 1746 the Virgin of Guadalupe was the patroness of New Spain. In 1910 she was declared the patroness of Latin America and in 1946 Pope Pius XII declared her to be the patroness of all the Americas. In 1988 the liturgical celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12 was raised to the status of a feast in all dioceses in the United States.[/quote]

OSV Catholic Encyclopedia.

Anyone ever see the wishbone on this?

[CatholicCid]

This is a cool little fact:
[quote]On November 14, 1921, a factory worker placed a bomb a few feet away from the apron. The explosion demolished the marble steps of the main altar, blew out the windows of nearby homes and bent a brass crucifix, but the fabric suffered no damage.[/quote]

And a picture of the damage done to the crucifix, [url="http://www.sacred-destinations.com/mexico/images/mexico-city/basilica-guadalupe/bent-crucifix-cc-odoyle81.jpg"]http://www.sacred-destinations.com/mexico/...cc-odoyle81.jpg[/url]

[SJRod55]

Never heard about the above. This was really interesting - thank you