Guadalupe: The Miracle and the Message (2015) - full transcript

Nearly

five centuries have passed,

yet this event endures

in the hearts of millions,

transcending divisions

and uniting cultures

with its timeless message.

An ancient fabric

miraculously intact,

an image that defies

scientific explanation,

an intricate set of symbols

that would bridge two worlds

and countless cultures,

and the transformation

of a continent.

This is the story

of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

When Pope John Paul II arrived

in Mexico City

for the canonization of

Saint Juan Diego

in July of 2002,

millions of Mexican Catholics

turned out.

They lined the streets

and filled the plazas.

They came together

to celebrate the making

of the first indigenous saint

of the Western Hemisphere

and the woman whose image has

changed the course of history.

- The canonization

of Saint Juan Diego

is very significant,

because if the apparition

of Our Lady of Guadalupe

is not authentic,

there is no Saint Juan Diego.

So as part of that whole process

of reviewing the life

of Juan Diego,

you have to validate,

authenticate

the apparition

of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

So that's one way in which

his canonization

is very significant.

When the Spanish

conquistador Hernán Cortés

landed in Mexico in 1519,

he encountered

a thriving Aztec empire

that extended throughout

Mexico's central plateau.

According

to an indigenous legend,

the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli

delivered a sign

indicating where they should

build their city:

at the site where an eagle,

perched on a cactus,

was seen devouring a snake.

In 1324, the Aztecs founded

a city named Tenochtitlan,

which for them

was the center of the universe,

the place where the cycle

of the universe was sustained

by human sacrifices.

Hernán Cortés formed

a military alliance

with native tribes

opposed to the Aztecs.

Amazingly,

in just two short years,

he succeeded in conquering

the Aztec empire.

The Spaniards began

constructing a new capital

using materials

from the recently destroyed

Tenochtitlan,

or present-day Mexico City.

During the first stage

of evangelization,

a few missionaries attempted to

convert the indigenous people.

However, the task

would prove to be

a very arduous undertaking.

- To understand

the dramatic impact

that Our Lady of Guadalupe has

on the native population,

you really have to put yourself

in the position of these people

at the collapse

of the Aztec Empire

and what their understanding

of religion really was.

We have to remember

the horrific face

of the Aztec deities

that were there to receive

the human sacrifices.

We have to understand

the history of the Flower Wars,

in which battles were waged

in order to obtain prisoners

for sacrifice.

So now what were

the native peoples expecting

the god of the Spaniards

to be like,

the victors to be like?

Bishop Juan de Zumárraga

was known as protector

of the Indians.

He bears the responsibility

of defending the natives

from cruel abuses carried out

by the new Spanish government,

including their widespread

enslavement and murder.

His courageous stand

leads to at least one

assassination attempt

by corrupt members

of the first audiencia,

or royal court, in New Spain.

Bishop Zumárraga, infuriated

by the continued abuses,

and facing numerous threats

against the lives

of his fellow priests,

decides upon drastic measures.

In 1530, he excommunicates the

members of the first audiencia

and abandons Mexico City.

Zumárraga wrote

a letter to Emperor Charles V

detailing the many abuses

carried out

against the native people.

The story of what happens next

is passed down

through the centuries

by the humble man

who experienced this event

and who shared his encounter

widely.

Eventually, his testimony is

captured in an ancient text

known as the Nican Mopohua,

written in the 16th century

by the Indian scholar

Antonio Valeriano.

The Nican Mopohua

recounts the story

of Juan Diego,

a Catholic convert and widower.

His Indian name

was Cuauhtlatoatzin,

meaning "eagle who speaks

divine things."

Some skeptics have cast doubt

on Juan Diego's

historical existence,

a claim denied

by Miguel León-Portilla,

a premier authority

on Aztec language and culture.

- In the apparitions in Mexico

of Our Lady of Guadalupe,

like many other apparitions

in the world,

oftentimes Our Lady will appear

to very humble people

and, in this case,

to the Indian Juan Diego,

a humble man, a very simple man

of simple faith,

because those who have a heart

like children

and who are open to God

can receive this message.

On December 9, 1531,

Juan Diego walks

along the western side

of Tepeyac Hill

on his way to catechism

at a Franciscan mission

just north of Mexico City.

According to the account

in the Nican Mopohua,

the woman identifies herself

as "the mother of the true God"

and asks that a sacred house

be constructed in her honor

on Tepeyac Hill.

She asks Juan Diego

to bring this message

to Bishop Zumárraga.

Juan Diego returns to

Tepeyac Hill empty-handed.

The woman asks him to return

to Bishop Zumárraga

with the same message.

He obeys, and this time,

the bishop asks for a sign.

On Monday,

Juan Diego fails to show up.

His uncle Bernardino

is gravely ill, facing death.

He asks Juan Diego

to find a priest

to administer last rites.

On December 12, 1531,

Juan Diego sets out

towards Tlatelolco

to find a priest for his uncle.

In a hurry,

Juan Diego tries to avoid

meeting the virgin.

He goes around Tepeyac Hill,

but the woman comes down

from the top of the hill

and cuts him off.

Juan Diego explains

why he is in a hurry.

But the woman tells him

to have no more fear,

that she holds him

in the fold of her mantle

and in the cradle of her arms,

and she assures him

that his uncle is well.

Juan Diego asks her to honor him

but letting him be

her messenger.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

now instructs him

to climb to the top

of Tepeyac Hill

and gather up in his tilma

all the flowers he finds.

Upon reaching the summit,

Juan Diego is amazed

to find extraordinary flowers

in full bloom.

These flowers would be the sign

for the bishop.

This remarkable image...

Inexplicable in its style,

luminous colors, and imagery...

Would change the course

of history

for the entire continent.

Today that sacred house

asked for by the Virgin

is now the Basilica of Our Lady

of Guadalupe,

the most visited

Catholic shrine in the world.

Each year,

millions of pilgrims come

to celebrate their faith

and the miraculous image

of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The shrine

of Our Lady of Guadalupe

is a source of inspiration

for the faithful.

They come here to find

the comfort of their mother

and to pray

for her intercession.

- A lot of the pilgrimages

that I've done,

a lot of the people

are from the United States.

They don't have any Latino

heritage or anything.

But they've always wanted to go,

and the blessings

that they receive...

I've seen people start

to pray the rosary again.

People have gone to confession

for the first time in many years

when they've gone to the shrine.

Spiritual direction,

the healing of marriages,

reconciliations between

family members and so forth.

It's really

a tremendous blessing

that takes place there,

and I think that Our Lady's

presence in that tilma,

still to this day,

has a lot to do with that.

- The first time I went

to the shrine

of Our Lady of Guadalupe

and approached the tilma,

I knew I was entering

into the presence

of something sacred and holy.

The supernatural presence

of the icon

made an impression on me.

I was immediately touched

by the devotion of the people.

I mean, it was

an incredible experience

of their tenderness

and their approach to Mary

as their mother.

And from that moment on,

I've had a loving experience

of Mary.

The image

of Our Lady of Guadalupe

holds many unsolved mysteries.

The first mystery

is its very existence.

A 1946 study by the National

Autonomous University of Mexico

confirmed that the tilma

is made of ixtle,

or izote agave fibers

from the cactus plant.

- I think it's very important

to examine miracles

in a scientific way

and to look for an explanation

in the natural world,

which everybody tends to do

and wants to do,

and then we discover

a rather miraculous things

that can't be answered

from ordinary experience.

In the 18th century,

a scientist named Dr. Bartolache

commissioned the creation

of two works

similar to the Guadalupe image.

These paintings were also

created on agave cloth

and were placed in locations

around the Basilica

of Guadalupe.

The survival of the tilma

is even more amazing

when one considers

that it was left

completely unprotected

for more than a century.

Many aspects of the image

defy logic and science.

The tilma has a seam

running down its center

rendering the cloth

a poor canvas choice.

But researchers are astonished

to discover

that the very flaws

of the tilma's fabric

reveal the genius of the image.

The tilma also lacks

any preparation or imprimatura,

a necessary step

when painting on fabric.

The lack

of preparation is made clear

by a startling realization.

The same image appears

on both the front and back

of Juan Diego's tilma.

In 1795,

an accident nearly destroys

the tilma.

A worker

cleaning the glass encasement

clumsily spills nitric acid

on the image.

Among the many wonders

of the Guadalupe apparition

are new discoveries being made

into the images

present in her eyes.

José Aste Tonsmann

is a Peruvian engineer

and an expert

in digital image processing.

In the late 1970s,

he began applying his studies

to the tilma.

In the human eye,

the cornea reflects the image

in front of us.

Both eyes will show

the same image

but different sizes.

This phenomenon is precisely

what Tonsmann found

when magnifying both eyes.

Each eye contained mirror

images of the same scene.

The incredible devotion

inspired by

Our Lady of Guadalupe

and her miraculous image

can be traced back

to the very first years

following her apparition

to Saint Juan Diego.

Despite ongoing tension

with the Spanish colonial

government,

the apparition triggers one of

the greatest conversions

to the Catholic faith

in history.

- This marks a difference

in the type of evangelization

between the New World

and the Old World.

What had been

the typical model was,

one baptized the prince

or the king or the queen,

and the followers followed

his decision

as to the religion

of the kingdom.

But in The New World,

what happened

with Juan Diego

and Our Lady of Guadalupe

was a conversion beginning

among the people

that then filtered up

instead of a conversion

at the top

which filtered down.

The native people are drawn

by Juan Diego's

powerful encounter

with Our Lady of Guadalupe,

but they are also amazed

by an image

that reveals the Christian faith

through symbols

they could understand.

In Aztec society, codices,

or pictorial manuscripts,

were an essential means

of communication.

The image

also contained symbolism

that would transform

the worldview

of the indigenous people.

Their new understanding of God

and of love

would help eliminate

the long-standing practice

of human sacrifice.

Like European iconography,

Our Lady of Guadalupe

is standing on the moon,

but for the indigenous mind,

the moon represented the home

of the omnipotent God.

The many symbols

in the image

of Our Lady of Guadalupe

led to millions of conversions.

This powerful symbolism

was further strengthened

by a major festival

called Panquetzaliztli,

celebrated

around the winter solstice,

which, in the Julian calendar,

took place on December 12th,

the same date as the apparition

of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

- With Our Lady of Guadalupe,

what we find

is actually the transformation

of a culture

according to new norms

validating its own heritage

and its own history.

Good example of this

can be seen in Mexico in 1544,

when Mexico experienced

one of the worst droughts in

its history.

Typically, the Aztecs responded

to such a situation

by the massive sacrifice

of many young children.

After Our Lady of Guadalupe

in 1544,

there was a massive pilgrimage

of young children

to the shrine

of Our Lady of Guadalupe,

so the transformation

from a culture, we might say,

of death

to a culture of life.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

is often called La Morenita,

a reference

to her darkened complexion

that makes her the perfect

symbol of a mixed people.

- Saint John Paul II referred

to Our Lady of Guadalupe

as the perfect model

of enculturation.

This means that she comes

to the indigenous people

in their own customs

and imagery.

And, in fact, in her face,

the mestiza face,

they see in her an affirmation

of their human dignity,

their human worth,

and of course the response

is overwhelming.

Even during the

Mexican Revolution of 1910,

Emiliano Zapata and his troops

entered Mexico City

carrying a banner

of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Despite Mexico's

Catholic identity

and the Guadalupan devotion,

church state tensions reach

a peak during the 1920s.

In an effort to suppress

the faith of Mexico's citizens,

the government set out

to destroy

the church's

most important symbol.

In 1921, an agent

working for the government

places a bomb

hidden in a basket of flowers

directly under the tilma.

In the following years,

the persecution of Catholics

only increases.

This leads to a rebellion

against the repressive

government

known as the Cristero War.

These Catholic freedom fighters

choose Our Lady of Guadalupe

as their patron

and their inspiration.

Many victims of the Cristero war

flee to the United States.

This mass immigration serves

to increase

the already budding devotion

to Our Lady of Guadalupe

outside Mexico's borders.

- The Cristero imprint

on Mexicans

coming to the United States

was rather large,

because a lot of the people

who were exiled from Mexico

during the Cristero period

came to Los Angeles,

and they wore it

on their shirtsleeves.

That was... if you were Mexican,

you were a Guadalupano.

And so the devotion has been

very strong.

It's spread now

throughout the United States.

In 1941, delegates

from the 20 American republics

came to the shrine of Our Lady

of Guadalupe in Mexico City

to pray for peace

amidst the horrors

of the Second World War.

Archbishop John Cantwell

of Los Angeles

led a delegation

from the United States.

The Mexican church

was so grateful

for Archbishop Cantwell's

presence and support

that they gifted

the Los Angeles archdiocese

with a relic of Saint Juan

Diego's miraculous tilma.

To this day, it remains

the only such relic

in the United States.

In recent years,

under the auspices

of the Knights of Columbus,

the relic has passed through

numerous American cities

and been venerated at large

Guadalupan celebrations

in both Phoenix and Los Angeles.

N- In speaking of a New World,

what we're really talking about

is the unity of different

peoples and different cultures

to create something

that did not exist before.

In the United States,

for example,

our country

is a great melting pot

of many immigrant groups,

of many ethnicities,

of many religious traditions

coming together

to forge a new society.

This is primarily the message

of Our Lady of Guadalupe,

that regardless of differences,

there is a basic unity

of human dignity

and a respect

for different cultures.

And if we maintain that,

we can actually create

something new.

- I have my passion for surfing,

and I have my passion

for Our Lady,

especially Our Lady

of Guadalupe.

When I was a young man,

I was raised

in a very difficult, tumultuous

family setting,

and I really bit

onto the culture

and the bad things

of the culture.

So I got involved with a lot of

drugs and lot of promiscuity.

It was after reading a book

about the Blessed Virgin Mary

that I really got what I call

the divine 2x4 experience.

God just hammered me

with the truth,

and I fell madly in love

with him and with Our Lady

and with the Catholic Church.

I do consider myself

a Guadalupano.

She's my mother,

and I feel united with those

that I don't even speak

their same language.

A mother always unites

her children,

and that's a big part, I think,

of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The spread of devotion

to our Lady of Guadalupe

across the American continent

is captured

in this beautiful and idyllic

shrine dedicated in her name.

La Crosse, Wisconsin,

is a far cry

from bustling Mexico City,

but it is here

that a new generation of

Guadalupanos is being formed.

- Thank you very much.

- Thank you.

- After the synod on America,

the church in America,

in which Saint John Paul II

underlined so powerfully

the importance

of Our Lady of Guadalupe

for the living of the faith

in the whole continent:

North America, Central America,

South America.

Then I understood that it

should be a shrine to Our Lady

under her title

Our Lady of Guadalupe.

- We have people coming

from everywhere.

I've had people

from as far away as China.

The ones that are always

the most interesting

are the ones who simply see

the roadside sign

and just come in.

- What I hear most of all

from the pilgrims

is that when they come here,

the minute they come up

on the grounds,

they have a sense of peace,

and they're inspired to pray.

The heart of the message

is very simple,

that she wants to show

to her children

God's love for them.

- I've always been infatuated

with the story

of Our Lady of Guadalupe

and her message

and Saint Juan Diego,

and we've always tried to

share that with our children,

and we happened to kind of just

stumble upon it.

Then we found out they were

building this church,

so we've kept coming now for

the last eight or nine years.

- I came from California,

from San Diego,

to commemorate this shrine,

because she is Our Lady

of the Americas,

and she's really a lady

for all of us,

for those

from the tip of Argentina

all the way up to

the United States and Canada.

So we look to her for guidance,

for inspiration

in our daily lives.

The shrine in La Crosse

has opened new hearts

to the message of Guadalupe

and has united people

of all ethnic backgrounds

in their common faith.

- I can speak to Our Lady

of Guadalupe's effect

in the local community and with

the people who come here.

It's a community of believers,

and I think that the propagation

of devotion

to Our Lady of Guadalupe

beyond the Hispanic community

will simply bring

more understanding

that we're all in this together.

The whole thing

initially was funded

by well-meaning Anglos,

non-Hispanics

who simply caught the message

of what the Pope was saying

and what the bishop,

now Cardinal Burke, was saying

and went with it.

It's... you have to see it

to even believe

this could happen.

As patroness of the Americas,

our Lady of Guadalupe

also inspires Canadians.

And in a special way, she speaks

to the First Nations

communities.

- When I read that story

and how,

as early as December 1531,

when Our Lady appeared to an

indigenous person in Mexico,

speaking his language

and taking, in fact,

a complexion

of indigenous children,

I was just overwhelmed

and deeply touched.

First of all, she takes

the complexion of our people

and how she knew

of the particular distress

that the people were in,

how they were treated

less than human

but how she came

to raise their dignity.

And when you stop and think,

when Our Lady appeared

to Saint Juan Diego,

at the time,

his age was 57 years old.

And so she appears to elders,

which elevates, then,

the significance of elders

in all our cultures

as indigenous peoples.

Inspired by the

mestiza face of Our Lady,

Nicholas began touring

First Nation communities

with the Guadalupe image,

sharing Juan Diego's encounter

and example

of an enculturated

evangelization

that respects indigenous

culture and experience.

- When I first saw

the missionary image

of Our Lady of Guadalupe

which is Canadian,

I fell in love with her

immediately,

but I was overcome by the fact

that this was the face

of Our Lady,

of the mother of Jesus.

And the only place in the world

where she has left behind

her face was in Mexico.

Each summer, I bring

the missionary image

of Our Lady of Guadalupe

to this area of New Brunswick

and go around to not only

First Nation communities

but non-native communities

as well

to actually share the story.

And so when you hear words

of people

who are the walking wounded

and then later on

you see them rejoice,

they say, "Thank you very much

for bringing the story of

Our Lady of Guadalupe to us."

And there are many, many stories

over this past eight years

that I've taken the image around

where she has brought

great comfort to people.

- The fact

that Our Lady of Guadalupe

communicates with a poor person

like Juan Diego

is a message of what we call now

option for the poor,

which Pope Francis is

talking about all the time.

Our church must be a church

of the poor for the poor,

evangelical poverty of

simplicity and of humility

and that is a very strong

message for today.

While devotion to Guadalupe

remains most widespread

in the Western Hemisphere,

it is increasingly

a global phenomenon.

At the National Shrine of Our

Lady of Guadalupe in Manila,

Filipino Catholics continue

a centuries-long tradition.

- Our Lady of Guadalupe

has a great impact

on the Filipinos.

The devotion was brought in

from Mexico

through Spanish missionaries

and such that by 1935,

the Holy Father Pius XI,

at that time,

decided to declare

Our Lady of Guadalupe

as the patroness

of the Philippines.

There are two things

that were originally, I think,

was the inspiration

for the people to be in love

with Our Lady of Guadalupe.

One is the color.

The color of the Blessed Mother

Guadalupe is an Indio,

and we were called Indios

by the Spaniards.

The second is that the one

to whom he appeared

was also an Indio, Juan Diego.

I think that the impact

of the devotion to Our Lady

is not only on families

but all society in general.

- Until recently,

Our Lady of Guadalupe

has been seen almost exclusively

as a Mexican phenomenon

or a Latin American Hispanic

phenomenon,

but we need

to open our horizon a bit.

We have to understand

that she is the patroness

of the Philippines,

and so she reaches the hearts

of millions of Asians.

We have to remember

that at the time

of the appearance

of Our Lady of Guadalupe,

New Spain existed

throughout the western part

of the United States,

and so she is an apparition

for the United States

as well as for Mexico.

- Our Lady of Guadalupe is the

mother of the Sisters of Life.

We process to her every night

at the end of our night prayer,

throughout our convent,

singing the "Salve Regina,"

acknowledging her as our mother.

Unlike her other apparitions,

there's nothing like

the Guadalupe apparition,

because when she came here,

she came simply as a mother.

She didn't exhort the people

to prayer, to conversion,

to fasting.

That wasn't her message

to these people.

Her message

was a message of love.

She came with the assurances

of love,

that "I am here,

I am your mother."

- In my confessional

in Philadelphia...

I hear confessions

every Sunday night,

and right outside

my confessional

is a beautiful mosaic

of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

I can see through the door

the number of people

who stop at the shrine

of Our Lady of Guadalupe

and pray

as they prepare for confession,

and I think

that it's kind of symbolic

of the role

of Our Lady of Guadalupe

leading us further

into our Christian life

day by day,

asking us for constant

transformation, change,

and conversion.

- Our Lady of Guadalupe

has been referred to

as the Mother

of the Civilization of Love.

So what is the motherly message

of our Our Lady of Guadalupe?

It is one of concern,

of compassion, of love

for all members of society,

even the poorest,

even the outcast.

And so if the person is created

out of love for love,

only a civilization of love

is worthy of human dignity.

And this is fundamentally

the message

of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

For almost five centuries,

Our Lady of Guadalupe

has united bitter enemies,

endured as a symbol of hope,

and defied

scientific explanation,

becoming the patroness

of the Americas.

Today her presence is as real

as it was in 1531,

when Juan Diego first walked up

Tepeyac Hill

and encountered the woman

millions would come to call

"Our Mother."