Our Lady of Guadalupe,

patroness of Rosary For Life

By Wyn Powers, Rosary For Life President

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Quite often I am asked why Our Lady of Guadalupe is the Patron Saint of Rosary For Life. When I say that the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe is the only known picture that Our Blessed Mother left of Herself on earth and that She is pregnant with the Christ Child in this picture, people are amazed. Most ask for an explanation as to how the picture came about. Father Harold J. Rahm, S.J. addresses this in the following article:

Her answer was delivered through Juan Diego, an Aztec Indian, who with his wife, Maria, and uncle, Juan Bernardino, had been among the very first New World converts to Christianity. Early in the morning of December 9, 1531, as Juan Diego was walking from his home to the Franciscan monastery at Tlalteloco, some miles distant, to attend Mass in honor of the Conception of Mary celebrated on the ninth, She appeared to him.

As he was passing the rocky crags of Tepeyac Hill, he was brought to his knees by dazzling light and the sound of ethereal music. He looked up to see a beautiful Lady smiling tenderly and lovingly at him.

The Lady called him by name and, addressing him in his own Nahuatl language, told him:

"I want you to know, my son, that I am the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God, Author of life, Creator of all things, Lord of heaven and earth, who is everywhere. I urgently desire that a church be built here on this site where I may give to you and all your people my merciful love and show my compassion to all who are devoted to me and seek me in their need. Go to the house of the bishop in Mexico and tell him all that I have told you. Tell him of my desire for a church to be built on the site in my honor."

When Juan presented his claim that he carried a message from the Mother of God, Fray Zumarraga listened patiently to his story and then dismissed him. Juan felt that the bishop did not believe him.

Discouraged, he returned to the Hill where the music and the radiant light proclaimed the Lady's presence. He found her waiting for him there and knelt at Her feet, addressing Her in these touching words: "My very dear Daughter, my Queen, my Lady Most High, I did what you asked...I do not think he believed me, because he told me to come back again, so that he could inquire of me at greater length about the business on which I came, and examine it to the roots. He presumed that the church which you ask to be built is a fiction of mine, or fancy of mine, and not your will: and so I pray you, that you send some noble and chief person for this purpose, one worthy of respect and to whom credence will be given; because you see, my Mistress, that I am a poor countryman, a humble villager, and this matter on which you sent me is not for me: pardon me, my Queen, for my boldness, if in anything I have exceeded what is fitting and owing to your greatness; I do not wish to fall under your indignation or have displeased you with my reply." She assured him that She had chosen him above all others to be Her messenger and told Juan to return to the bishop on the morrow and repeat Her request. True to his promise, Juan visited the bishop’s house the next day and repeated his story. The bishop listened more attentively as each detail was reaffirmed by the Indian. Finally, the bishop asked Juan to bring some sign as proof of the story, and Juan happily agreed to do so. As the Indian left, the curious bishop assigned two servants to follow him and report what they saw. However, as they approached Tepeyac Hill, Juan disappeared from their sight. They turned back, disgusted, and give the bishop an unfavorable report.

Our Lady now told Juan Diego that She would give him the sign for the bishop on the following morning. He left with joy in his heart, but was quite upset upon returning home to find that his uncle, Juan Bernardino, was very ill and required constant attention throughout the next day. The morning of December 12th, Juan Diego set out to bring a priest to his uncle's bedside as the old man was convinced that death was near and wanted to receive the Last Sacraments.

As he approached Tepeyac, Juan reasoned that he could take a different path and avoid the Lady. Surely She would be angry with him for failing to keep his appointment the day before. Well aware of his feelings, the Lady met him on the path and confronted him.

Juan requested Her permission to let him continue on his way, for his uncle was very ill.

"Listen, my son, do what I tell you now. Do not be troubled, nor disturbed by anything; do not fear illness, nor any grievous happening, nor pain. Are you not under my shadow, my protection? And am I not life and health? Are you not in my favor, and do you not go on my errand? Do you need anything else? Do not be troubled, or take thought of your uncle's illness, for he will not die of this seizure, and is well even now. " (And it was so, as he learned later on, according as She had said.) And She continued, "Go now to the top of the hill and there you will find roses blooming. Pick as many as you can hold in your cloak and bring them to me."

Flowers had never before been seen on this rocky point where only cactus could thrive. Trusting the Lady, however, Juan ascended to the rocky summit.

There he found beautiful, fragrant roses, the like of which he had never seen before, blooming in profusion. Juan gathered as many roses as he could and placed them in his tilma. Descending, he returned to the Lady who arranged the flowers carefully in his cloak and then bade him return to the bishop. His heart singing, Juan hastened to the bishop's house, clutching the roses in his tilma.

Once in the presence of the bishop, Juan opened his tilma to reveal the roses, unaware that Fray Zumarraga had been praying for just such a sign. But at the very instant the roses dropped to the floor, Fray Zumarraga witnessed the appearance of Our Lady of the cloth. Falling on his knees, he thanked God for this heavenly gift.

In the meantime, the old uncle, Juan Bernardino, also had received a visit from the Lady, who instantaneously restored him to health. Thus cured, She gave him the message that She wished to be called "Santa Maria de Guatemala." This name, as spoken by the old man in his native Indian language, more than likely was the Indian phrase meaning "She who crushed the head of the serpent." This sound was interpreted by the Spaniards as "Guadalupe," the name of a well-known shrine to Our Lady in Spain.

In truth, Our Lady did "crush the serpent," for the Indians whose religion had many gods and goddesses of all shapes and attributes, likewise revered the feathered serpent. Now they accepted the God of the Spaniards as they flocked to the shrine built to house the Holy image.

Through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, 8 million Indians were converted in the next seven years. To the Indians, who had no alphabet of their own, the message of the visions and the symbolism of Our Lady's portrait as interpreted by them, had tremendous significance, and it brought them by the myriads into the Church, many of them traveling great distances for the purpose. With Our Lady's help, the Spaniards remained to colonize Mexico and to extend the teachings of the Church in America. Without Her help they might have vanished from Mexico and American history might have followed a vastly different course.

To the Indians, She is the beloved "Dark Virgin." To all the Americas North, South and Central - She is the Mother of God.

Whatever may be the correct interpretation of Her name and Her appearance, it is certain that once you see Our Lady of Guadalupe, you will never forget Her. She is an inspiration to all to try to live up to the wonderful love of God who blessed the Americas through this precious gift. In truth, She is the Mother of the Americas.

May Our Lady of Guadalupe intercede with Her Divine Son for our Apostolate. And may She continue to bless all of us in our endeavors for LIFE.

May Mary always be our guide as She brings us closer to Her Son.

Not quite four decades after Columbus discovered America and slightly more than one decade after the Spaniards first set foot on what is now Mexico, God in a special way showed his love for the peoples of the new world by sending them His Mother. His Mother gave to the Americans an unique and wonderful gift: her own self portrait miraculously impressed upon the tilma of Juan Diego, a humble, unlettered Aztec Indian. She promised Juan Diego that "I will give you and all your people my merciful love." She expressed the desire that a church be built on the spot where she appeared, so that She might "show my compassion to all who are devoted to me and seek me in their need." This took place at a time when no boundary lines were yet drawn across the Americas - hence Her words were for all the people of the New World.

Her portrait, the miraculous painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe (for so She stated She wished to be known when She appeared to Juan Diego's dying uncle, Juan Bernardino) hangs high over the main altar at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City - an inspiration to all who behold it, a source of comfort and hope to all who invoke Her aid. Her compassionate partly downcast eyes and loving hands joined in prayer teach us by example the value She places on prayer.

To this Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City annually come millions. They come by car, by train, by plane, and many on foot - from all corners of the country and from far away lands beyond Mexico's borders. They come to see the portrait, to ask Our Lady's special intercession, to thank Her for graces received.

The portrait itself confounded art experts through the centuries who have examined it minutely. By all natural laws the tilma, a coarsely-woven cloak of cactus fiber, should long ago have disintegrated, especially so since for over a century it hung in the open, whereas now it is covered with glass. No art expert has ever been able to explain the method of application or the media used in impressing the portrait onto the tilma. No other painting known to exist has a natural lifelike quality of the portrait of Our Lady of Guadalupe - and certainly nothing compatible to it was known or is available dating back to the early part of the 16th century. Moreover, a group of five ophthalmologists who examined the eyes of the portrait through their ophthalmoscopes in May of 1956, each found he was "looking into a human eye" (this is authenticated by a certificate dated May 26th 1956, signed by the five.)

This portrait was left to us by Our Lady in the year 1531.

By the end of 1531 the Spaniards had a decade of conquest of the Indians behind them but, unfortunately, the leaders had become ruthless in their quenchless thirst for wealth and power. The Aztecs had discovered the Spaniards were not gods but only human beings and had become very restless under their yoke of oppression; all of which did not tend to make them take kindly to the religion the Spaniards sought to spread.

But fortunately, just shortly before the Spanish Crown had sent Bishop-elect, Fray Zumarraga, O.F.M., to represent the Church; and Fray Zumarraga, a holy and just man, was concerned greatly about the behavior of the Spaniards in the New World and the slowness of the spread of Christianity among the newly found peoples. Upon his arrival in Tenochtitlan, where the Spaniards had set up their seat of government upon the ruins of the principal city of the Aztecs, he built his cathedral in honor of the "Mother of God" and expressed the wish to consecrate the lands of the New World to Her. (Incidentally, the United States of America was consecrated to the Immaculate Conception in 1846.) Fray Zumarraga prayed fervently to the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady to help him find a solution to the threat posed by the Aztecs whom he sensed were ready to revolt against and destroy the Spaniards, and for a way to win them in great numbers to the Christian religion way of life.

Our Lady's answer to his prayers came so simply and beautifully and was so quietly accomplished, that historical writings made little mention of it as a moment which changed American history. Yet Our Lady's gentle touch did just that.