Some Thoughts on La Virgen de Guadalupe and The Mexican People

Today is a Special Day. It’s the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe!

Our Lady occupies a special place in the hearts of the Mexican People and has been written about in many places, by a wide variety of writers. Even those with a tenuous connection to the Church admit she has a strong presence and influence. Carlos Fuentes, Octavio Paz, Gloria E. Anzaldúa, and countless others have acknowledged how she is perhaps, the most important figure in Mexican identity. Some event take it a step further and say she’s The First Mexican.

You see her throughout history, When the Church was being outlawed in Mexico and priests were being killed, The Cristeros cried “Viva Cristo Rey!” yet upon their banner, which was a modified flag of Mexico, you saw the image of the Virgin de Guadalupe. Cesar Chavez also called upon her likeness when protesting Migrant Workers’ Conditions in California.

Why is she so important? Well, there are explanations to be had. What the symbol means, the timing of it, just the sheer divinity of it all, it’s a very moving thing. Something Mexican people embrace openly and freely. Women wake up early in the morning in Mexico and lay flowers at her shrine in The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Pilgrims will walk for miles to see her, some will go on their knees, and I am told in the old days (I don’t know if it’s still true, but it sounds much better to say in the old days) the sidewalks would have stains of the blood of devoted pilgrims who travelled on their knees to the see La Virgen de Guadalupe.

There is a false narrative that she came to tame the Aztecs, and baptize them in the name of the lord. This is wrong due to Cortez’s conquering had occurred a decade before. So it makes you wonder why? There is a wonder that Mary, chose to appear in a humble setting to Juan Diego as a native girl and show that she is with the people. Not just the Spaniards, who no doubt, had their own appreciation of the Madonna, but as a Mestiza (that term refers to a mix between Spaniards and the Natives in the new world). She spoke to Juan Diego in Nahuatl. All of this indicates a special love and caring for the Mexican People, one that has been and will continue to be reciprocated.

I think about my own devotion to La Virgen, there is a great love and wonderment about it all. The whole thing seems strange and amazing to me. It goes beyond an apparition and a miracle (Though those are incredibly beautiful and awe inspiring as well!), to something tying not only the divine, but the land and people as well. It’s a thought that I carried with me during a period of my life when I wasn’t believing. Even though I could avoid the Church, I couldn’t avoid La Virgen. She’s tattooed on the  arms of some of my friends, painted as part of Murals in Los Angeles. My mom has a beautiful painting of her in the family house. So in that sense, when I “returned” to the Church, all I had to do was turn to La Virgen and, as we often have to do with our mothers, admit I was wrong. The Church received me back and what a strange journey it’s been! Yet here I am, writing about La Virgen on her feast day.

Image used is public domain / Wikimedia Commons.