You Decide!
This is not a be-all and end-all list. Nor is it perfect. It is generic and simply just some chronological facts that lead up to and surround the incredible miracle of Mary appearing as Our Lady of Guadalupe — the Woman Clothed With the Sun!
On this Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we thought it might be fun to just step back and look at history from the perspective of Heaven and see if God’s plan was slowly but inexorably moving forward. While we are sure there are a zillion other factors we can add to this list, please do so yourself if you are aware of them. These just seem to be the more glaring features of a plan designed from the foundation of the world!
Here is the partial list of events for you to decide whether they are “coincidence” or a Divine Plan to reveal Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe — the One who crushes the serpent!
1. In the beginning … after the fall of Adam and Eve, God promises that eventually the woman shall crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15 — and let’s not get into an argument here; either the Holy Spirit is God or not, and if He is, which He is, He does NOT make mistakes inspiring His Word for 1,500 years to read: “she shall crush thy head”! See the original and true Word of God, the Latin Vulgate Douay-Rheims for the correct reading of Genesis 3:15 and get rid of your Bible if it says, “it”).
2. The New Covenant … after the Resurrection of Christ, the early Christians begin speaking of Jesus and Mary as the “New Adam and New Eve,” reversing the fall and sin of the original Adam and Eve.
3. The 1st Millennium … as the Holy Spirit enlightens the Church about the special role Mary plays as the New Eve, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception takes root in the Byzantine empire of Christianity in the 8th century.
4. In the Middle East … militant islam rears its ugly head, taking possession by force Christian shrines and turning captured prisoners, including children, into slaves.
5. The 2nd Millennium … in the 1200s, the first documented person to have the stigmata — the actual wounds of Christ — forms a new order in the Universal Church. The order, called the Franciscans after the great St. Francis of Assisi, dedicates itself to promoting and preaching the Truth that Mary is the Immaculate Conception. The order’s founder, St. Francis, originally sought to preach the Gospel to moslems and convert them to the true faith.
6. In the New World … the pagan empire of the Aztecs receives a startling prophecy in the 1400s. The daughter of the king has had a dream that men in ships will come from beyond the sea to teach the people the Truth about God. The sign that the men and their ships are from the one true God is that they will use a Cross as their symbol.
7. In Spain … around the same time, after 700 years of war, the people finally free themselves from the yolk of islamic oppression. The royal family who had helped guard the Sudario, the cloth that wrapped the Face of Christ when He was taken down from the Cross, are instrumental in securing the unity and freedom of the Spanish nation. [We’ll talk more about the Sudario and its history as we move into the Lenten season.]
8. Continuing in Spain ... the Franciscans have built a shrine to Mary in Guadalupe (a name which, before the islamic occupation, originally meant “River of Light”). Inside the shrine is a statue of Mary clothed with the sun and the moon under feet symbolizing Her as the Immaculate Conception and the Woman Clothed With the Sun from Apocalypse.
9. From Portugal … after being rejected by the royal family in this country, a man who knows not where to turn next with what he believes is his divinely inspired plan visits the Spanish shrine to Mary in Guadalupe to pray. His name is Christopher Columbus.
10. At the shrine … strictly by “coincidence,” the new queen of Spain’s confessor happens to be at the shrine. Columbus tells the queen’s confessor of his inspiration to sail west — not to find a new trade route as our secular revisionists wish you to believe — but to find a way around the islamic nation that was cutting off supplies from the East to Christian Europe. In fact, Columbus hoped to find the successor to the famed “Great King,” Kubla Khan, that Marco Polo spoke of, in order to bring the Gospel to the Orient as Khan had long ago requested of Polo. Columbus theorized that if Europe and the Far East could join forces as Christians, they could attack from the East and West to end the threat of islamic domination over the Holy Land and Europe and free the parts of the Orient under occupation.
11. From the shrine … the queen’s confessor writes Columbus a letter of introduction to the royal court and states that he believes the ideas and plans of Columbus are an inspiration from God.
12. At the Spanish royal court … believing that Columbus is a man whom God has brought to her for help, the queen of Spain orders that he be given what he needs for his adventurous journey.
13. Sailing from Spain … Columbus sets sail to find, not only a safer trade route, but an Oriental ally to help defeat the islamic nation. He names his vessels the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria: the holy female child, the lookout and the Holy Mary. Interestingly, Christopher, which means “Christ-bearer,” uses the vessel Holy Mary as his flagship.
14. Out at sea … Columbus and his men practice praying the Angelus every day, a prayer that contains three Hail Marys within it, and one which helped defeat the islamic horde in the Battle of Belgrade just a few decades earlier.
15. Deep in the Atlantic … 30 days out to sea, the men become frightened and threaten to mutiny. Columbus asks the men to given him three more days and leads them in praying the Salve Regina: the prayer that honors Mary as our Queen and Mother and pleads, Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy; hail our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve … .
16. The New World … 3 days later, the Pinta spots land. Columbus names the island San Salvador, Holy Savior, and celebrates with the Franciscans from his ships the first Mass in the New World. For the first time in the history of the world, the New “Ark” [read “boat”] of the Covenant Holy Mary has brought the Christ-bearer with the Gift of the Eucharist to what will become known as the Americas.
17. On the way home … in one of his journeys, Christ-bearer Columbus is shipwrecked and nearly drowns. Praying for Mary’s intercession, he is washed ashore on an island. He names it Guadalupe (“Guadeloupe” on our maps today because it became a French territory) in honor of the shrine dedicated to Mary in Spain.
18. The colonization … in 1519, as prophesied, men carrying a Cross as their symbol will land on Mexican soil for the first time at a place they name Vera Cruz. It is Good Friday and the True Cross has come to the Aztecs. But the harshness of Spanish rule is not conducive to Aztec conversions in the New World. The first bishop of the Americas prays for Mary’s intercession. He asks for a sign, roses from his home area in Spain.
19. The first converts … an Indian who does convert takes the name of Juan Diego, the same first name of the Lord’s Beloved Disciple John, who took Mary into his home and heart, and His cousin, John the Baptist, who leapt at the sound of Mary’s voice when he was still in his mother’s womb. Diego is the Spanish name for St. Didacus, a Franciscan friar.
St. Didacus died a half-millennium ago but his body mysteriously remains incorruptible in Spain to this day.
20. Choosing the chosen ones … for reasons known only to God, Mary chooses Juan Diego as the man to give the bishop the sign he has been praying for. Is it because of Diego’s humbleness, humility and simplicity? The “smallest” of Mary’s children, as She will later state to him? Wasn’t it Jesus who told us we must become like children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Don’t children need a mother?
21. The first apparition … Mary began appearing to Juan Diego on December 9th, the original date that the Byzantine Church first began celebrating Her Immaculate Conception in the 8th century. She identifies herself to him as the “Ever-Virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the true God.” She will symbolically ask Juan this question, “Who is your Mother?”
22. The miracle … on December 12, 1531, the incredible miracle occurs. Mary will give the bishop the sign he has been waiting for. At first, as we would all do, the bishop did not believe Juan Diego that a lady in brilliant light had been appearing to him. In order to convince the bishop, Mary tells Juan Diego to collect roses at the top of the hill where it has been snowing! Diego collects them in his tilma, bringing them to the bishop, believing this is the only sign the bishop will see.
When he gets to the bishop’s residence and reveals the flowers hidden in his cloak, the bishop falls to his knees! Why? On the inside of Diego’s cloak is the miraculous image we see today of Mary as the Woman Clothed With the Sun — Our Lady of Guadalupe. Upon seeing the Image of Mary, the Franciscan bishop readily identifies her from her statue in Spain and cries out, “It is the Immaculate Virgin!”
23. The sign … Mary’s image was NOT the sign the bishop had been expecting. But to be ensured there was no mistake as to who this was, the bishop was also granted the sign he had been praying for. The bishop had asked Mary to have Castilian roses brought to him. At this time in Mexico, Castilian roses did not grow in the New World — they only grew in Spain! Among the flowers in Juan Diego’s tilma with the Image of Mary was, indeed, Castilian roses.
24. Another “coincidence” … another queen was associated with Castilian roses — the queen of Spain, Isabella, who was instrumental in ensuring Columbus began his journey.
25. Another miracle … having sent Diego on Her mission to the bishop, Mary will heal Juan’s dying uncle. It is through this Aztec convert that the name Guadalupe will be forever associated with the miracle. Diego’s uncle, Juan Bernardino, had no idea his nephew was having visions of the Queen of Heaven and Earth. And when Mary comes to heal him from his death bed, he asks this Woman Clothed With the Sun, “Who are you?”
Juan Bernardino, a newly converted Aztec Indian, did not speak Spanish, taking his new foreign name for his baptism. So Mary did not speak to him in Spanish. She spoke to him in his native tongue.
26. The name … while there are variations as to the spelling of the Aztec word Mary spoke to Juan Bernardino, “Cotallope” gives one the necessary letters to visually understand that phonetically the Franciscans, who did not completely understand the native language of the Aztecs, would translate this word to one they knew and understood. Knowing that it was Mary who appeared to Bernardino, they believed She had told him She was Our Lady of Guadalupe, relating this name to their shrine in Spain. In reality, “Cotallope” translates to “the One who crushes the serpent!”
27. Crushing the serpent … and that is exactly what Mary did in Mexico. As a result of Her apparition as the Woman Clothed With the Sun — the Woman who crushes the serpent as God promised in Genesis 3:15 — the Aztecs began to convert en masse to the true faith. They stopped worshipping their serpent and sun gods, abandoning their pyramids and pagan sacrifices, and began worshipping the one True God.
In their former temples, statues of Mary honoring Her as the Immaculate Conception replaced their pagan gods.
28. From the New World to the Old … and Mary will not stop there. When Europe was again faced with islamic aggression and outnumbered in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, just 40 years after the apparitions in the New World, She will again crush the serpent with Her Image as Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Image had been brought to Europe for the first time in the hope that the Mother of God would again, as She had at the Battle of Belgrade a century before, intercede for the Christians and help defeat the moslems.
At this time, Europe, like Constantinople, was about to be overrun in the never-ending islamic “jihad.” But through Mary’s intercession, Her Son will ensure that the islamic fleet, despite its overwhelming superiority, will be defeated. As a result, Mary will be honored with the Feast of the Holy Rosary.
29. Generational forgetfulness … but time marches on. Generations pass and mankind will forget Mary’s victories and neglect Her. In fact, people will begin to turn their backs on Her and even dishonor Her -- islamic aggression seemed to be a thing of the past.
30. The 3rd Millennium … islamic aggression rears its ugly head — and for the first time in the New World. On the day of the attack against America, what was going on in the oldest shrine in the United States dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe? At the shrine — known as Santuario de Guadalupe in Santa Fe, New Mexico — Mary was NOT being honored the days before, the day of, and the days after the attack. Instead, Her sanctuary is no longer a sanctuary. Her Son is no longer present in the Tabernacle. There is no longer a Tabernacle. Santuario de Guadalupe, once a Catholic Church, is now nothing more than a museum with a piano in the middle of what once was the Altar.
And on the days preceding the attack, in this now “secular” museum that houses the oldest known portrait of Our Lady of Guadalupe painted from the original tilma in Mexico, blasphemy continually reared its ugly head.
Instead of love, Mary received scorn. Instead of honor, Mary received dishonor. Instead of thanksgiving, Mary was laughed at.
On September 11, 2001, as islamic terrorists murdered innocent people and snuck in our backdoor, the curators of Santuario de Guadalupe continued their exhibition of an image of Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe painted by a so-called “artist” depicting the Blessed Virgin Mother of God virtually nude in a bikini as naked angels danced in a pagan romp around Her.
Before, during and after the World Trade Center fell, the secular art “historians” who operate Santuario de Guadalupe as a museum refused to hear the cries of the faithful and remove the offensive image. The rights of an "artist" were defended over the rights of God's Mother!
It was the same in New York for one full year before the attack when the Brooklyn Museum proudly ran an exhibition that defamed Mary’s holy Image.
And then we ask ourselves, why does God let evil men do what evil men do?
Do you wish to make amends for our nation which so casually dishonors its Queen?
Do you want the help of Mary to intercede before Her Son so that, once again, He may grant the faithful its prayers and bring about the victory that we all so desperately desire over islamic fanaticism?
Then today of all days, and tomorrow and the next day, prayers to Mary are in order.
May we begin with a prayer to make reparation and honor
Our Lady of Guadalupe
How to defeat islamic terrorism!