Her patronage is needed more desperately than ever
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Our Lady appeared to an Aztec peasant almost 500 years ago in Mexico, uniquely among all her other apparitions throughout the ages.
She became visible to the man – now canonized as St. Juan Diego – wearing a black ribbon tied about her middle, the unmistakable signal in native culture that the woman before him was with child. Indeed, Our Lady was bearing Baby Jesus, proclaiming for that time – indeed for all times and places thereafter – that she is the patron and protector of life within the womb.
In the ensuing centuries, Juan Diego's heavenly visitor became known to the world as Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico, indeed of all the Americas, and particularly of unborn children.
HUMAN SACRIFICE: THEN AND NOW
Little more than a decade before Our Lady of Guadalupe first appeared to St. Juan Diego, human sacrifice had been a regular part of Aztec religious rituals.
Aztec priests, using razor-sharp obsidian blades, sliced open the chests of sacrificial victims and offered their still-beating hearts to the gods. The victims' lifeless bodies were then tossed down the steps of the Aztec pyramids.
Babies and children, as well as captured warriors and slaves, were among the most common victims. Babies, in particular, were sacrificed to the rain gods for survival in times of drought and scarce food sources.
Our Lady's appearance to Juan Diego as an expectant mother and a protector of life could not have come in more marked contrast to the cultural norms and values of the Aztec empire.
As gory and bloody as these details are, and as likely as we might be to dismiss them as barbarism of a past time, they are not at all unlike the prevalence of the practice of abortion in our own day.
"We live in the worst of times," posted prominent pro-lifer Deacon Nick Donnelly of the Lancaster diocese in the UK recently.
"Worse than Nazism, worse than Stalinism, worse than Maoism. At no other time in human history has the murder of 73 million human beings A YEAR been accepted as normal or moral. We are surrounded by inhuman monsters who 'celebrate' the murder of babies and seek to murder more," he added.
Donnelly's post is not hyperbolic, yet there seems no stopping the scope and scale of the billion dollar abortion industry. America continues to legalize abortion, state by state and by popular vote in ways even more pronounced than the top-down judicial tyranny of Roe v. Wade (1973). And how eerily similar is the practice of Planned Parenthood's harvesting and negotiating the sale of baby body parts from infants with still-beating hearts to research facilities.
Nowadays, pregnant women who sacrifice the babies in their womb do it – not as a gift to the rain gods – but, according to current studies, for the sake of a career, a more convenient lifestyle, or because of financial ill-preparedness. They often succumb to the pressure of partners and family members, as well as to the ubiquitous presence of the Planned Parenthood propaganda machine.
The entire onus of the deed, however, belongs not just to the mother who, in effect, hands the obsidian blade to the abortionist. But it belongs to all of us who participate in a culture that sees an unborn baby as a clump of cells, who prioritizes convenience as a determining value, who votes for pro-abortion candidates and amendments, and who do not assist frightened or confused mothers-to-be.
It belongs to all who choose to ignore the painful cries of the millions of aborted babies as they die.
And in a real way, the onus is also on those of us who do not pray to, and honor the example of, Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the unborn for relief from the barbarity.
THE MIRACLE OF THE ROSES
In addition to wearing the black sash around her midriff, Our Lady emphasized her role as loving Mother to Juan Diego in other ways.
When was on his way to Holy Mass near Tepeyac Hill, now famous as the site of the famous shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, she alerted him to her presence by the sound of soothing music.
According to a contemporaneous chronicler, she gently called him by name and appeared to him in beautiful radiance. Aware that he was concerned about his uncle's sickness, she immediately comforted him saying,
"Listen, and let it penetrate your heart, my dear son – do not be troubled or weighted down with grief. Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety, or pain."
Speaking to him in words that continue to console the hearts of her faithful children 500 years later, Our Lady said:
"Am I not here who am your mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms?"
Then, she asked Juan Diego to approach the local bishop and request a shrine be built where they stood so she could bless and comfort all those who called upon her.
Juan Diego heeded her request, visited the bishop, and explained the Lady's desire for a shrine. The bishop, unsurprisingly dubious, dismissed the peasant, demanding proof of the vision if he were to come back.
As a good mother, Our Lady did not abandon Juan, instead advising him about how to get proof for the bishop. She told him to go the place where she had first appeared. "You will find flowers growing there. Pick them and gather them and bring them down to me," she is quoted as saying.
Juan followed the advice, even though he knew it being winter no flowers should be blooming. To his surprise he discovered an abundance of beautiful Castilian roses, the type that grew only Spain.
He brought the flowers back to Mary who arranged them in his cloak, also called a tilma by natives, and sent him back to the bishop.
According to the chronicler, Juan Diego told the bishop:
My Lord, I have done as you asked. I went to my Lady, the Queen of Heaven, holy Mary, the Mother of God, and told her that you had asked for a sign so that you might believe me and build the church that the Virgin herself desires. I told her that I had given my word to bring you back some sign of her wishes. She heard what you had asked and accepted with good grace your request for some sign so that you could fulfill her will. Today, very early, she sent me back to see you.
As Juan unfolded his tilma, the bishop was astounded at the miraculous array of beautiful Spanish roses falling to the ground – and in the middle of winter.
But even more amazing was the image of the Blessed Mother of God that miraculously appeared on Juan Diego's cloak, the very one now showcased in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, the most visited pilgrimage site in the entire world.
THE MIRACLE OF LIGHT
Another miracle closer to our own time was reported at the holy site where Our Lady appeared to Juan Diego. It also showcased her motherhood in a remarkable way.
The Miracle of Light, as it has come to be known, is reported to have occurred on April 24, 2007, the same day abortion was legalized in Mexico City.
An intense light appeared emanating from the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe's womb, forming a halo in the shape of an unborn child on the tilma.
Observers said the light was radiantly white and intense, emerging directly from the tilma and not being reflected from another source. Many were able to photograph and film the phenomenon that lasted for an hour.
In 1999, Pope Saint John Paul II established Dec. 12, one of the dates on which Our Lady appeared to Juan Diego, as her special feast.
"[T]he Church must proclaim the Gospel of life and speak out with prophetic force against the culture of death," the pontiff declared when he visited the shrine. "May the Continent of Hope also be the Continent of Life!"
"This is our cry: life with dignity for all! For all who have been conceived in their mother's womb, for street children, for Guadalupe!" he enthused.
LAY YOUR PRAYERS AT THE FOOT OF OUR LADY'S ALTAR IN MEXICO CITY
The Hozana Association, an international Catholic prayer social network, has invited Souls and Liberty viewers, wherever they are in the world, to participate in the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in a special way this year.
All viewers are invited to add their personal prayer intentions, including those for aborted babies – past, present and future – online at this site.
The intentions will then be printed out and presented personally at the foot of Our Lady's shrine by Fr. David Jasso Ramírez, a member of the Mexican Bishops' Conference, during Holy Mass.
For more information, contact the head of the Hozana Association anglophone edition at cassandre@hozana.org.
Dr. Barbara Toth has a doctorate in rhetoric and composition from Bowling Green State University. She has taught high school in Poland and Oman and at universities in the US, China and Saudi Arabia. Her work in setting up a writing center at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahmen University, an all-women's university in Riyadh, has been cited in American journals. Toth has published academic and non-academic articles and poems internationally.