BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

At the end of the Papal Mass on Monday, a 'canto Mariano' (Marian hymn) to Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe was sung - it was the first time I heard it - and I loved it right away, for the lyrics (which are found in the online libretto for the Mass) and the typically lively Mexican flavor of the music (rather like 'Las Mananitas' - but with a better, un-pedestrian melody - the traditional Mexican birthday song that became associated with the cursillos de Cristianidad, a lay movement of Catholic renewal through a guided three-day retreat that began in Spain in the 1940s, and spread worldwide in the 1960s-1980s). For once, the use of native guitars and drums was welcome and appropriate in St. Peter's Basilica for the music of the Papal Mass. I was intending to insert the hymn and a translation in my post on the Mass, but the following item from the Catholic Herald written on the feast of San Juan Diego on December 9 gives me a more appropriate post to peg it on. However, the hymn that Fr. Lucie-Smith refers to appears to be a more popular one called 'La Guadalupana', not the one sung at the Vatican, which is more formally called 'La Virgen de Guadalupe'.


Our Lady of Guadalupe is the essence
of what evangelisation should be about
by Fr. Alexandre Lucie-Smith

Dec. 9, 2011

The conversion of Mexico was the single most successful mission undertaken by the Catholic Church. Why did it succeed when others failed?

By Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith on Friday, 9 December 2011
Our Lady of Guadalupe is the essence of what evangelisation should be about

Candles decorated with images of Our Lady of Guadalupe Photo: CNS photo/Rick Musacchio, Tennessee Register

I have been to Guadalupe, in Mexico City, and I have seen the tilma, the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary imprinted on the cloak of the Aztec Juan Diego. [Fr. Smith,tThe tilma is the cloak itself, from the Aztec word for cloak or mantle.]

The word “icon” is rather overused today, but for me an icon is a picture that provides the viewer with not just a picture, but an opening to an entire world. And such is the icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The story of Guadalupe is in itself extraordinary. The words of the Blessed Virgin addressed to the seer Juan Diego are simplicity itself and yet so profound:“My dear son, whom I love tenderly, know that I am the Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God, Giver and Maintainer of life, Creator of all things, Lord of heaven and earth, Who is in all places. I wish a temple to be erected here where I can manifest the compassion I have for the natives and for all who solicit my help…… Do not let anything afflict you, and do not be afraid of any illness or accident or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Is there anything else that you need?”The shrine was accordingly built, and within a few years eight million indigenous people had embraced the Catholic religion.

This simple fact is the greatest marvel wrought by Our Lady of Guadalupe, and it marks out the mission in New Spain (South America and the Caribbean) in the mid-sixteenth century as the single most successful mission ever undertaken by the Catholic Church.

Why was it such a success, when, for example, other missions, despite huge efforts (the one to Japan in the nineteenth century, for example) have yielded little fruit? The answer is to be found in the concept of inculturation.

The icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe is utterly Catholic and at the same time firmly rooted in the indigenous traditions of the Aztec people. It is emblematic of the way that the people of New Spain recognised and embraced Catholicism as something native, not alien, to their tradition; something that they had in a sense always longed for and always known, had they but known it. [This exactly is what Benedict XVI said in Aparecida in 2007, for which he was roundly castigated by the media and many anti-Church scholars and politicians for seeking to 'gloss over the imposition' of Catholicism on the indigenous peoples of South America and the Caribbean.]

Put more simply, the way Catholicism was preached to them resonated with their life experience, their culture, their view of the world; there was a natural fit between life and faith; they found, consequently, in Catholicism the completion of their culture they had always sought.

In other words, the icon of Guadalupe contains for us the essence of what evangelisation should be about. We need to learn from this icon; and we need to learn from the words addressed by the Virgin to Juan Diego. This is the language we want to hear, and the language we the Church need to speak.

Juan Diego’s feast is today, the anniversary of the first apparition in 1531. And the Virgin of Guadalupe is celebrated on Monday. In Mexico thousands of pilgrims will visit the shrine to gaze on the icon, and they will sing a hymn, whose key phrases are these:
"Suplicante juntaba las manos, Era mexicana, Era mexicana su porte y su faz" (Beseeching, she put her hands together. She was Mexican - Mexican in face, and Mexican in countenance".

The Virgin in the icon is a Mexican woman, in dress and features. God’s most holy Mother identifies herself completely with her people. And in return her people are truly her people: "Desde entonces para el mexicano Ser Guadalupano, Ser Guadalupano es algo esencial". (Since then for the Mexican, to be a Guadalupan is something that is essential).

For if she is with us, then we are with her. It is “something essential”, something that is at the foundation of our identity. But this is not just a Mexican thing, or an American thing, it is universal, truly Catholic. So, let the whole world celebrate Our Lady of Guadalupe on Monday. [And everyday!]

Here are the lyrics for the hymn sung at the Vatican:


Three or four years ago, I put together in the PRF a little compendium of the results of scientific investigations into the humanly inexplicable image on Juan Diego's tilma. It was the result of a quick random search online in which I picked up what I felt contained enough scientific information that was presented in an appropriate way. Despite my good intentions, I have never found time to give the topic the research, at least int erms of what is available online. But here's another random item I came across today which dates back to 2001 but is nonetheless still astounding for those like me who only has random spotty knowledge of the subject. ZENIT is credited as the source by the Catholic Resources Center, but besides the year, the date is not mentioned, so I'll try to look it up.



The images found within the eyes
of the Virgin on the tilma are
snapshots of its first unfolding

Digital technology is giving new leads for understanding a phenomenon that continues to puzzle science: the mysterious eyes of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The image, imprinted on the tilma of a l6th-century peasant, led millions of indigenous Indians in Mexico to convert to the Catholic faith. Earlier this month in Rome, results of research into the famed image were discussed by engineer José Aste Tonsmann of the Mexican Center of Guadalupan Studies during a conference at Pontifical Regina Apostolorum Athenaeum.

For over 20 years, this graduate in environmental systems engineering at Cornell University has studied the image of the Virgin left on the rough maguey-fiber fabric of Juan Diego's tilma. What intrigued Tonsmann most were the eyes of the Virgin.

Though the dimensions are microscopic, the iris and the pupils of the image's eyes have imprinted on them a highly detailed picture of at least 13 people, Tonsmann said. The same people are present in both the left and right eyes, in different proportions, as would happen when human eyes reflect the objects before them.

Tonsmann said he believes the reflection transmitted by the eyes of the Virgin of Guadalupe is the scene on Dec. 9, 1531, during which Juan Diego showed his tilma, with the image, to Bishop Juan de Zumárraga and others present in the room. [Actually, according to the stendard narration, he wasn't 'showing the tilma' - he unfolded it to show the bishop the roses he brought back from Tepeyac, and he was as surprised as the bishop to find an image on the cloak.]

In his research, Tonsmann used a digital process used by satellites and space probes in transmitting visual information.

He insisted that the basic image "has not been painted by human hand." As early as the 18th century, scientists showed that it was impossible to paint such an image in a fabric of that texture. The "ayate" fibers used by the Indians, in fact, deteriorate after 20 years. Yet, the image and the fabric on which it is imprinted have lasted almost 470 years.

Tonsmann pointed out that Richard Kuhn, the 1938 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, found that the image did not have natural animal or mineral colorings. Given that there were no synthetic colorings in 1531, the image is inexplicable.

In 1979, Americans Philip Callahan and Jody B. Smith studied the image with infrared rays and discovered to their surprise that there was no trace of paint and that the fabric had not been treated with any kind of technique.

"[How] it is possible to explain this image and its consistency ... on a fabric that has not been treated?" Tonsmann asked. "[How] is it possible that, despite the fact there is no paint, the colors maintain their luminosity and brilliance?"

Tonsmann, a Peruvian engineer, added, "Callahan and Smith showed how the image changes in color slightly according to the angle of viewing, a phenomenon that is known by the word iridescence, a technique that cannot be reproduced with human hands." [The same phenomenon is described about the veil of Manoppello believed to have the imprint of the face of Jesus.]

The scientist began his study in 1979. He magnified the iris of the Virgin's eyes 2,500 times and, through mathematical and optical procedures, was able to identify all the people imprinted in the eyes.

The eyes reflect the witnesses of the Guadalupan miracle the moment Juan Diego unfurled his tilma before the bishop, according to Tonsmann.

In the eyes, Tonsmann believes, it is possible to discern a seated Indio, who is looking up to the heavens; the profile of a balding, elderly man with a white beard, much like the portrait of Bishop Zumárraga painted by Miguel Cabrera to depict the miracle; and a younger man, in all probability interpreter Juan González.

Also present is another Indio of striking features with a beard and mustache, who unfolds his own tilma before the bishop; a woman of dark complexion, possibly a Negro slave who was in the bishop's service; and a man with Spanish features who looks on pensively, stroking his beard with his hand.

In summary, the Virgin's eyes bear a kind of instant picture of what occurred at the moment the image was unveiled in front of the bishop, Tonsmann says.

Moreover, in the center of the pupils, on a much more reduced scale, another scene can be perceived, independent of the first, the scientist contends. It is that of an Indian family made up of a woman, a man and several children. In the right eye, other people who are standing appear behind the woman.

Tonsmann ventured an explanation for this second image in the Virgin's eyes. He believes it is a message kept hidden until modern technology was able to discover it just when it is needed.

"This could be the case of the picture of the family in the center of the Virgin's eye," the scientist said, "at a time when the family is under serious attack in our modern world."

It's hard to believe that when Hilary Clinton was taken to the Basilica in Tepeyac, not one of her aides had even thought to provide her with a briefing paper about the image, because the first question she asked, as reported by the news agencies at the time (2008 or 2009), was, "Who painted it?"