Virgilio Elizondo: Our Lady of Guadalupe, gift of a loving God

*The Faith and Leadership website writes this about Virgilio Elizondo: “The Rev. Virgilio P. Elizondo has been recognized by Time magazine as one of the leading spiritual innovators in the U.S. for developing a Christian theology within the context of the Mexican immigrant experience.” He was called a pioneer of mestizo theology, and I consider his writings about the Virgen de Guadalupe to be the best and most honest from a Mexican-American point of view. Through Elizondo’s eyes, the U.S. Latino presence makes spiritual sense. VL


By Virgilio  Elizondo, Faith and Leadership

From the earliest days of my life, I have had a great devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe as a loving and caring mother.

I remember vividly my first pilgrimage to her shrine. I was 8 and had traveled to Mexico City from my family home in San Antonio. The shrine had been a place of pilgrimage since 1531, and walking into the ancient basilica was like getting a glimpse of heaven itself.

My whole body and soul knew I was in the presence of a divine mystery, and her very presence seemed to transform the massive crowd into a loving family.

The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 12 is one of the most beautiful Christian celebrations of the American continent. Our Lady appeared in Mexico and is widely revered there, but today she is being recognized and acclaimed as the mother of the new humanity that is emerging throughout the American hemisphere.

Her apparitions in 1531 took place in the geographical center of our Western Hemisphere during the traumatic birth of the New World.

It was only 10 years after the war between the two great empires of that period: Spain in the Old World and the Aztec empire in the New. The defeated native people were crushed and humiliated. They had lost all hope and even the desire to live.

In this context of confusion and desolation, Our Lady appeared on a rural hillside to one of the defeated natives, Juan Diego, and asked him to be her messenger. He was instructed to go to the bishop and ask that a temple be built in that place, where she could listen to the laments and remedy the afflictions of the people.

Naturally, the bishop was skeptical and asked for a sign.

Juan Diego went back to the hillside, again encountering Our Lady, and returned with a cloakful of beautiful Castilian roses that had miraculously bloomed there. When he opened his cloak to show the flowers to the bishop and his assistants, there on the fabric was a life-size image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The apparition marked a spiritual beginning in America.

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[Photo by byroN José sun/Flickr]

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