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Catholic Saints
Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego
00:19:30
Dr. Ben Akers sits down with Dr. James Prothro to discuss Mary's apparition to Saint Juan Diego on Tepeyac hill under the title of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This important apparition played a historical role in the conversion of the Mexico to the Christian faith and the miraculous tilma worn by the saint is still venerated by millions today.
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- [00:02]
A
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live, and share their faith.
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B
Hello and welcome to FormNow. My name is Dr. Ben Akers. I'm the executive director of Formed. And today I'm going to be talking about Our lady of Guadalupe, this wonderful feast day especially important to us who live in the Americas. And my guest today is Dr. Jim Prothero, my colleague and friend here at the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology. Before we talk about this wonderful feast day, I'd like to thank you for your support of the Augustine Institute. Thank you for your support of FORMED through Mission Circle. It's through your generous donations that you make these shows available. So thank you for that. We celebrate on December 12, this wonderful feast day, this apparition of Our lady to the Aztec people in Mexico in 1531. And I've been blessed to visit the shrine and to see this image in person. One of the things that struck me, I was blessed to live down in Mexico for six weeks, and I spent a whole weekend in Mexico City living at the house near the shrine there. And one of the things that struck me is how pervasive Our Lady Guadalupe is. The images of Our lady of Guadalupe. And everywhere I went in Mexico, not just Mexico City, but all over the country of Mexico, I remember going to McDonald's and waiting in line for McDonald's and looking over off to the side, and there on the wall in the McDonald's was an our lady of Guadalupe. So more than just an image on the wall, we want to tell you about the story. And not only the story, but that impact for us today living here as part of the new evangelization. Pope St. John Paul II actually called Our lady of Guadalupe the star of the new evangelization. So with that intro, Jim, how would you describe your own experience with Our lady of Guadalupe?
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C
Oh, goodness. So this is a tiny bit personal, but that's what we're about here, is spirituality is always personal, right? I think I figured out what being Catholic was about. Like, just all of the joy of adoration first from vigils at a triduum celebration of Our lady of Guadalupe down in Florida. I hadn't been Catholic for all that long, and, you know, so all the doctrines made sense in my head. And I had, you know, become comfortable with things like eucharistic adoration. I'm like, okay, that's Jesus, and I'm here. But there was still some kind of connection in my heart of, like, Like I love God, but in terms of kind of like adoring the Lord through his people and those whom he sends to us and through images of God's love and care. And the parish that we were a part of in Florida had a three day and non stop complaints from the neighborhood, right? Constant celebration of Our lady of Guadalupe. And I was there, I was on the 4am slot to be on my knees singing the rosary, singing a chaplet in Spanish with everybody else. And I was meant to be there for an hour and then leave. But the smell of all of the roses, we were all just pouring our hearts out with all of the different images and looking at this image where you can see God sending his emissary, our Lord's Mother, to show, like you said, the new evangelization, to show his love and proclaim God's love and salvation desire for a specific people group that God meant to reach out to and the way that they responded with faith and all the symbols. So I just, I soaked it up for hours there and was really groggy at work the next day. But I think that's where I learned sort of that's where the final piece of the puzzle came together for me. My life with God, both knowing the things and receiving graces through the sacraments, but also just adoring God and being amazed at how God works and does everything in the world.
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B
So yeah, that's beautiful. And you saw a very concrete, lived out expression of people's devotion to God's mother, to Mary and what. That's one of the things. So not only did you have to wrestle with the teachings of the church, and then I know sometimes Protestant brothers and sisters have a difficult, difficult time with Mary and some of the teachings and dogmas about Mary. But then what were your thoughts about an apparition, an appearance of Mary?
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C
My thoughts now or my thoughts, I guess, yeah.
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B
Was there development?
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C
Oh, no. So I mean in terms of apologetics for any of the audience who live in more of the sort of Catholic world, for a lot of people who believe scripture and love it, they don't have a problem with the idea of apparitions or angels being sent on a mission or things like that, or even Moses and Elijah showing up next to Jesus, they just don't think that stuff happens anymore. And I had read enough of the church fathers to know that they thought this stuff still happened here and there with miracles or healings and things like that, that it wasn't sort of that everything had stopped, but the apparitions Honestly, weren't that much of an obstacle for me. Once I heard the stories, I wept the first time I heard about Our lady of Lourdes. But just this idea of like, here's Mary and she's just praying with her, you know, no, this spring is really important. But I just, I mean, I wept with just the idea of mary praying with St. Bernadette. And the same thing happened once. I had kind of gotten past that when I got to Our lady of Guadalupe, where she talks to Juan Diego and appears to him and wants a church built there for her, a temple built there for her. And I just, I get really teary eyed at the way in which it communicates the tender love of God for specific people and God's tasks for them. Yeah, it still hits me that way.
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B
Thank you for that personal testimony. And that's the amazing thing about these apparitions of Mary at particular moments in human history where she chooses particular person, a particular group of people to go to and to manifest herself. And one of the things that they often all have in common is that she takes on the symbols and images that are powerful to the people that she's appearing to.
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C
Oh, that's right. It makes me think a little bit of a passage in Romans 9 through 11. St. Paul is talking about how the grace of God has come to the Gentiles, but he's having to deal with some people who think that maybe that means that God isn't the God for the Jewish people anymore. And Paul says, no. Right. He's the God of everybody, but he's up to different things. Right. During salvation history at different times. And that passage was really helpful to me when I first heard about, say, Joan of Arc, because the first time I heard of Saint Joan of Arc is like, what do you mean? God doesn't like the English? He wants the French to win against the English. Yeah, well, no, he's just got something he's up to right there and he wants the world to see his glory through Joan in particular. And the same thing here. It's not as though God sort of like doesn't like, you know, other indigenous places, but that God had a special desire to put his name here in the Americas and in a way that the Franciscans and the other missionaries had brought, but they. But it hadn't sunk in all the way yet. And I think you knew no more about that than I do the history of that mission.
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B
Well, and as you mentioned, Jim, that this is now, historically, put this into context. We're in 1531 when this apparition takes place in Mexico City. And the Franciscans, as you mentioned, the missionaries down in what we call Mexico now, were having a difficult time. The bishop elect at the time was having a very difficult time spreading the faith and even said, maybe we just have to pull out. There's a letter, I think he wrote to Spain where he came from and said, I don't know if these people could be evangelized. We're just making no headway. And at a key moment, this is when Our lady appears to a man named Juan Diego. And so Juan Diego is, was a recent convert. I think he'd only been converted about seven years. He was baptized seven years before this apparition. And he's walking past this hill called Tepiac Hill and he hears music. And music is important because to the Aztec people, symbols of the divine were found in music, in song and in flowers. And the story of Our lady of Guadalupe, if you know the details, begins in song with Juan Diego going and exploring on the mountain and ends with the flowers and the beautiful image that Mary puts on the tilma. So one of the things that he, that then happens. So he goes and he sees Our lady up on the mountain and she has this beautiful phrase, she's speaking to him in his native language and she has these beautiful, you know, what we might call like a pet name or a nickname that we give to even our kids where we kind of adapt their name. It's Little Juan Diego, little Johnny Little, you know, little James, John Jamesie, this Little, this helpful, playful calling of Juan Diego. And as you mentioned, Jim, she says, I want a temple to be built. Go to the bishop and tell him, I want a temple built here. And how does that go? Do you remember?
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C
So he goes off to see the bishop. And the bishop the first day is not completely convinced, as you might imagine, says, well, why don't you think about it a little bit more? Let me think about it a little bit more. You go home. So he goes home and he comes back to the hill for a second day and he says, sister Our lady, can you send somebody else? They're not going to listen to me. You know, I'm a little. He calls himself a wing, you know, a rail backed man, says, I'm just, you know, I'm kind of worthless. And she says, I have lots of messengers, but I want you. And you know, you see the same pattern in scripture and all these other times when God comes to someone specific to say, hey, I want you to do something. You know, everybody From Moses to Gideon, you know, on they all go, huh, Me, I really don't think that you mean me. And sometimes because they don't really want to do it, and sometimes just because they feel really, really small and they think that this is. That there must be some sort of mistake in the kind of heavenly HR office, you know, like, I think you meant to email somebody else with my same last name. But God always puts himself forward to say, no, I will be with you. And Mary says something similar to that in her care for Juan Diego. Later, at a further vision after he goes back to the bishop. The bishop, after the second vision is a little bit more receptive, maybe, but then he'll go back for a third and be asked for a sign. You want to talk about that?
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B
Yeah. So I love that Juan Diego has his uncle who's taken care of Juan Bernardino, who is sick. And so when Our lady said, come back and check in with me, he actually tries to skirt the mountain. He tries to go a different way because he wants to go get a priest for his uncle to be able to receive confession before and communion before he passes away. And Our lady, just to show her beautiful condescension and her love for Juan Diego, saying, no, no, I chose you. You're my messenger. You're the one that I want. She comes down the hill, meets him, and she says one of the most beautiful phrases that I love to meditate on. And I have it written out here that I'd like to share because it' it's words for us, too, that Mary thinks of us. We're her messengers. We're the ones that have been chosen by her, by her son to do some special tasks in salvation history. This is what Mary says. Listen, put it into your heart, my smallest child, that the thing that frightened you, the thing that has afflicted you, is nothing. Do not let it disturb you. Am I not here I who am your mother? Are you not under my shadow and my protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle and the crossing of my arms? Do you need something more? And I love that. Am I not here who am your mother? And those words of Mary ring down throughout all her children that Mary is our mother. We're placed under her mantle under special protection.
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C
And such a wonderful. You know, you think about the history and all this and kind of what God is up to in sending Mary at this moment, the wonderful condescension, all of this, the expression of divine love. But, I mean, you think about the timing, as you mentioned earlier, it's 1531. This is right after the Lutherans have presented their confession of faith to the Emperor Charles V over in Germany. This is right when everything is starting to go wild over there with the Reformation. And here's an entire, you know, set of people whom God wants to call and to whom Mary comes, while there's plenty of people deciding they don't like her on another continent, here she comes and she says, I'm your mother. I love you. Right here. Are my arms not enough? And Juan Diego, of course they are, you know, surely with some fear and trembling, that's. I'm always amazed, too, about St. Juan Diego and his just utter, utter receptivity almost all of the time. He tries to skirt everything else. But every time he talks to Mary, his responses are always, you know, yes, yes, ma'am. You know, it's almost like, yes, Mom.
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B
You know, so different. Yes. And he does that. And he's actually a canonized saint, too. So he's a Canaanite that we actually celebrate his feast day because he actually lived a life of heroic virtue as well. And part of that was because he was just so faithful to Mary's words. And he just kept going back to the bishop. And so the bishop asks for a sign. Mary tells Juan Diego, this is December, and says, go up to the mountain and this Tepeyac Hill and pick the flowers that are up there. So not normally a time when flowers would be in season. And I love this small detail in the story where Mary arranges the flowers as he's putting in his tilma, this cloth that he would carry things in, and she's arranging the flowers. Go take this to the bishop. This will be the sign.
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C
And then he goes right on down. And I'm sure some of the people outside the bishop's office are going like, here he comes again, right?
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B
This guy again.
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C
Here he comes. Wonder what he's seen this time. But he comes in and he says, the lady has this for you. Wants me to show you this, the sign. And so he opens up his tilma to show the flowers. And now, miraculously, painted set into the tilma is the image of Our lady of Guadalupe that we all know, with the angel, the child, holding up the moon underneath her. She's crowned and mantled, and she has a black belt around her waist, and she's looking downward. And it's beautiful. It's a beautiful image. It's also really rich in communicating to the bishop. And then even more than that, Communicating to everybody else. The bishop can see the flowers, can see the, wow, something happened here. This is impressive. But when everybody else from the community looks, they see in that image signs that take into account their own way of understanding things. You have a black belt that shows that the lady is pregnant. The fact that she's looking down means that she's not a God. And yet she has symbols for divinity around her, associated with divinity, gods and salvation. And there's a lot of rich material there, isn't there?
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B
There is. And as Dr. Prothero is mentioning that, I encourage you to look online. There's so many websites that are dedicated to finding what those different symbols that are evoked by this image of Mary. We also have wonderful resources on Formed. There's a movie that's called 1531. It was originally in Spanish, so you watch in Spanish and in English, dubbed and subtitled, where it goes through the different accounts of people that actually met Juan Diego, the bishop's secretary. And it took notes. And what happened when Juan Diego lowered the tilma, the flowers fell to the ground, and Mary miraculously put her image onto this miraculous tilma. The tilma is only made of cactus fiber and shouldn't last more than 20 years at the most. And now we're almost celebrating the 500th anniversary. This image, the images that are. That Mary is portrayed in were images that resonated both with the Spanish audience and also the Aztec audience. So much so that, as Dr. Prothero mentioned, thousands, hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands of people became Catholic. Actually, some of the priests told stories, they kept journals, and they said that they actually needed help holding up their hand because they've been baptizing so many people that miles upon miles of people waiting in line to be baptized once they see this miraculous image of Mary. And so many conversions have taken place in front of this image. And so if you ever have a chance to go and make a pilgrimage there, it's an incredible blessing. But I encourage you to go online to resources we have on forum. We have a wonderful talk in Spanish and English by Luis Soto about the different images of the hair, the flowers that are on our garment. Why are the constellations that are on our tilma? But I want to tease it a little bit so that you'll go and you'll learn more about our Le Guadala. But she's our mother. She's the mother of all those that follow her son, but in a particular way. She's the mother of all those that live in the Americas. Not just Central and South America, but also North America that she is our Mother as well. So in a special way celebrate this feast Day of Our lady of Guadalupe. Thank you Dr. Proto for joining us and thank you for your support of the Augustine Institute. Thank you and God Bless.
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