Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Gospel of life

This past week, I had the opportunity to celebrate Mass in the beautiful monastic chapel of Saint Gregory’s Abbey. The occasion of this most recent visit was the observance of the National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children.
 
Following Mass, during which we prayed for victims of abortion and the parents and families who have experienced the pain and loss of abortion, we processed to the outdoor Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We blessed wreathes of flowers that would be carried to cemeteries and placed at monuments remembering the unborn who have lost their lives through abortion. It was a powerful reminder of the millions of victims of this silent holocaust that has so eroded respect for all human life from conception to natural death.
 
Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of the pro-life movement and an August visit to her basilica in Mexico City reminded me of the appropriateness of this association. Celebrating Mass at the basilica’s main altar directly beneath the miraculous tilma of Saint Juan Diego, which bears Mary’s image, I recalled the events that were such a remarkable stimulus in the evangelization of the American continent. It’s a story that is probably familiar to most of us but the highlights bear repeating in this context.
 
In 1519, when Hernan Cortes arrived in Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire, he found a well-advanced civilization that was remarkable in many ways. He had come as a conqueror for the Spanish crown but also was accompanied by missionaries who began the work of evangelizing a continent. It’s a complex history. These missionaries discovered an entrenched cult based on human sacrifice. The indigenous people believed that their gods demanded human blood in order to be guaranteed bountiful harvests. These gruesome human sacrifices were being offered in astonishing numbers on a regular basis.
 
Against this background of fear and superstition, the work of evangelization was not producing the desired fruit. There were relatively few conversions and baptisms. All that changed in 1531 when on a cold December morning Mary appeared to Juan Diego, a simple indigenous peasant who had been a convert to the Christian faith. She entrusted Juan Diego with a mission to go to the bishop and request that a chapel be built on the site of her apparition, Tepeyac hill. The bishop was understandably skeptical and requested a sign.
 
The sign that Mary gave changed the course of history. Not only did she provide beautiful roses in December for Juan Diego to bring to the bishop, but even more remarkable, her vibrant image was imprinted within the folds of his outer garment. The bishop had his sign and the people came by the thousands to see and venerate the sacred image. The priests couldn’t keep up with requests for baptism! The continued existence of that fragile garment made of crude fibers is remarkable enough, but it is the sacred image that it bears that continues to reveal its mysteries and touch hearts nearly 500 years later.
 
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is itself a codex, a coded message, that spoke to the indigenous people in a way that the missionaries alone could not. She was one of them. The tilma contains symbols and images from nature that spoke in the language and culture that these indigenous people immediately grasped. The image of Mary itself proclaims the central truths of the Gospel and revealed that the God to which Mary and the unborn child in her womb silently bore witness is not a god who demands the bloody sacrifice of slaves but rather the true God who gave his own son to suffer and die for us and for our salvation. He is not a god of death, but the God of life.
 
The Aztec empire fell swiftly and with it its bloody human sacrifices. Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of the pro-life movement, bears witness to the Gospel of life. Her image affirms the dignity of every person from the moment of conception.
 
Our Lady of Guadalupe also is rightly called the “Star of the New Evangelization.” Even as she led the way in the first evangelization of the American continent nearly 500 years ago, we appeal for her assistance today in confronting so many challenges to the sanctity of life and human dignity.

Photo: Archbishop Coakley and Abbot Lawrence Stasyszen, O.S.B., pray on Sept. 14 at the outdoor Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Gregory’s Abbey in Shawnee during the National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children. Photo Br. George Hubl.