Virgo Potens

OUR LADY of GUADALUPE - 11 • The pink color of her tunic symbolizes the earth, and the design on her rose-colored garment is a topographical map of the area in Mexico where the apparition occurred: she is also the ‘Queen of the Earth.’ • The angel holding both her mantle and tunic indicates that heaven and earth are united in her. She is the ‘Queen of Heaven and Earth’. • The four-petaled flower over her womb (jasmine) conveys that she is “The Mother of God". • The black cross on the brooch at her throat indicates that her God is the same as that of the Spanish missionaries: her Son is therefore Jesus Christ. • Her hands are joined in prayer and her eyes are lowered submissively. She prays to One Who is greater than she: her hands point to the cross at her throat.

OUR LADY of GUADALUPE - 10 What the Aztecs Saw The native Indian population interpreted the image of Our Lady as one would a hieroglyphic: their form of writing was pictorial. This is what they would have seen: • A beautiful lady standing in front of the sun, a sign that she is greater than their sun god, Huitzilopochtli. • The crescent moon is beneath her feet, showing her vanquishing of the moon god, Tezcatlipoca. • The stars, worshipped by the Aztecs, are strewn across her mantle: she is greater than the stars. • Her hairstyle conveys that she is a virgin. • The black ribbon over her womb, the Aztec maternity belt, conveys that she is with child. • The blue-green (or teal) color of her mantle, indicates that she is a queen, and is symbolic of heaven. She is the Queen of Heaven.

OUR LADY of GUADALUPE - 9 On April 24, 2007, immediately after the legalization of abortion in Mexico City, an unusual luminosity in the framed image of Mary at the Shrine of Guadalupe in Mexico City became visible, after a Mass which had been offered for aborted babies. Photos show an intense white light emanating from her abdomen creating a brilliant halo having the form and measurements of an embryo: the light appears to float within her abdomen. The image does not come from a reflection but originates from ‘inside’ Mary. The light is very white, pure and intense, different from the light produced by photographic flash.

OUR LADY of GUADALUPE - 8 More Miracles • Some say that Mary assumes a different ethnicity depending on one's vantage point, which could be considered miraculous: at one distance, she appears to be an indigenous native, but at another distance she appears of European descent, an effect that is achieved in nature when different colors change at different distances, and an effect which no human artist could produce. Other sources say that she appears as a mestiza, of mixed race, Aztec and European. • The image of Our Lady corresponds to the dimensions of an expectant mother at the end of gestation. Christmas, according to the Gregorian calendar, was just a few days away.

OUR LADY of GUADALUPE - 7 Our Lady’s Eyes • Mary's eyes in the image refract as would normal human eyes. • When examined at 2,500 times magnification, thirteen individuals appear within her eyes at different proportions, just as a human eye would reflect an image; there is a different scene in each eye. • It appears that her eyes reflect the very moment Juan Diego unfurled the tilma before Bishop Zumárraga. • Small veins have been detected on both of the eyelids of the image. • When Our Lady’s eyes are exposed to light, the pupils contract; when the light is withdrawn, they return to a dilated state. • One source mentioned that in the 1970s, a Japanese optician who was examining the eyes fainted and upon recovering stated that the eyes were alive and looking at him.

OUR LADY of GUADALUPE - 6 • If her cloak were unfolded completely, the Corona Borealis (the Northern Crown), would be over Our Lady’s forehead, indeed crowning her with stars (Rev. 12:1). The arc of this crown is created by 7 major stars and 6 lesser stars, 13 in all. • The constellation Virgo would be placed over the area of Mary's heart, signifying her immaculate and virginal purity. • The constellation Leo, representing Our Lord (the Lion of the Tribe of Judah) would be placed over her womb (Rev. 5:5). Leo’s primary star is ‘Regulus,’ meaning ‘little king’ (the Christ Child). • Gemini (the Twins), would be over Our Lady’s knees or lap, often called the Seat of Wisdom. Many depictions of Our Lady with Our Lord show Him sitting or standing in her lap. • Orion (the Warrior/Hunter) would be over the angel at the bottom of the image, who perhaps represents the great warrior Prince of the Heavenly Host, Archangel St. Michael.

OUR LADY of GUADALUPE - 5 The Invisible Constellations • 15 constellations were visible in the night sky on the night of December 12, 1531. Some of the folds in Our Lady’s cloak obscure the full view of some constellations, while others wrap around her back, making 5 constellations invisible, the four that are on the back of the cloak and the one that covers the top of Our Lady’s head.

OUR LADY of GUADALUPE - 4 Our Lady Clothed in Stars • The stars that appear on Our Lady’s cloak are astronomically correct and correspond precisely to the constellations of the winter sky in Mexico on December 12th, 1531. The Julian calendar, ten days off from the modern calendar, was still in use in Mexico. This actually places Our Lady’s appearance, according to the Gregorian calendar, on the morning of the 22nd of December – the Winter Solstice – which is the longest night of the year. After the Solstice, the days grow longer. Our Lady appeared at dawn on the Winter Solstice, bringing “the dawn from on high” Christ Himself, and signaling an end to the darkness of paganism. • The precise apex of the Solstice was at 10:40 a.m., likely the precise moment when the visionary, Juan Diego, was unfolding the tilma and showing it to the bishop of Mexico. • The constellations on the cloak appear as if viewed from outside the universe, in other words, as if being viewed from above by the eyes of God, with north being south and south being north, rather than from below as would be seen from earth.

OUR LADY of GUADALUPE - 3 The Name Now, the language the Aztecs was Nahuatl. It is thought that the name ‘Guadalupe’, the site of a prior Marian miracle in Spain, was a misinterpretation of the Nahuatl name that Our Lady had given to herself, ‘[Te ] Coatlaxopeub’, which means "she who bruises the serpent”, and sounds the same as ‘Guadalupe’. Tepeyac, the site of Our Lady’s apparitions, was the former location of an important pagan temple honoring an Aztec goddess with the name ‘Our venerated Mother Woman-Snake’. This was commonly known by the local population in 1531. While ‘Guadalupe’, a location in Spain and a name derived from Arabic would have had no meaning for them, ‘[Te ] Coatlaxopeub’, an Aztec name, would have been very meaningful. The Image In her miraculous image, Our Lady appears to be standing in front of a sun, thus crushing, and proving herself more powerful than, the most important god of the Aztecs, and the layers of miracles within the image itself, and associated with it, are many, including: • Infra-red studies which reveal that the image was not painted and the color does not penetrate the fibers. The image is iridescent. Studies have not succeeded in discovering the origin of the coloration of the image. Microscopic examination has revealed that there are no brush strokes. • There is no under-sketch or under-drawing on the image. • The image has remained intact for 492 years and shows no signs of deterioration. Under normal conditions, the tilma, woven of agave popotule fiber from the ixtle plant, should not have lasted for more than 60 years.

OUR LADY of GUADALUPE - 2 1531 By 1531, fueled by long-standing and uncorrected abuses within the Catholic Church, large sections of Europe were in the midst of a religious revolt and millions were apostatizing from the one, true Faith. The earliest dissenters appeared in the 14th century. By 1517, Martin Luther had posted his infamous Ninety-five Theses on the church door in Wittenburg, leading to revolt in other parts of Europe. In 1531, King Henry VIII declared himself head of the Church in England, and then proceeded to steal every piece of church property that had been built in England for more than a thousand years, closing all of the monasteries, rendering thousands of monks and nuns homeless, and destroying any aid to the poor supplied by this vast network of religious houses. In Mexico, things were also not going so well for the Church. The Aztecs, having been conquered in 1521, were on the verge of an uprising, due to the severity of Spanish rule. Few had converted to the Catholic faith, and human sacrifice to the Aztec ‘gods’ (we would rightly identify them as demons) continued. So, in 1531, Our Lady personally came to the New World to convert the entire Western Hemisphere. She appeared on a low-lying hill on the outskirts of what is today called Mexico City. It is not the middle-point of the country of Mexico, but is instead the geographical center of the entire hemisphere of North, Central, and South America, or “the Americas.” Much of what we know about these events comes from what was, for many years, oral history. As the story is told, on December 9, 1531, the day after the Feast of her Immaculate Conception, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a humble and devout peasant named Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, a recently converted Aztec. He first beheld this beautiful young woman while walking to Mass. She identified herself as the Blessed Virgin Mary, and asked that he take a message from her to the Bishop, a Franciscan friar by the name of Juan de Zumrárraga. She requested that a church be built in her honor on the barren hill of Tepeyac, now part of Mexico City, where she appeared to Juan Diego, to be a sign of her love, and promising to bless those who came there to pray. When asked by Zumrárraga to procure a sign from the Lady to confirm her identity, Juan Diego returned with his cloak full of Castilian roses, unknown in Mexico at the time, that had miraculously bloomed at the command of the Lady. Legend has it that she arranged them with her own hands in his cloak. This was on December 12, 1531. Imagine the astonishment of all in the room as Juan Diego opened his cloak (tilmahtli), allowing the roses to spill forth onto the floor, their gazes captivated by the miraculous image our Our Lady herself which had instantaneously appeared on the tilma where the roses had been. The church was built, as Our Lady had requested. Our Lady also appeared to the uncle of Juan Diego, Juan Bernardino, who was close to death and miraculously cured by her. He said that Our Lady should be properly called ‘the Perfect VIrgin, Holy Mary of Guadalupe.’

December 12th ~ OUR LADY of GUADALUPE Empress of the Americas A Brief History

Month of the Immaculate Conception ~ December 12th The Long Darkness (continued) 3. If I had lived then, what should I have been? Even with all my countless graces and advantages, what a poor specimen I am of one made by God, for God, and in the image of God! In heathen days should I not have been among the most depraved? Should I not have recklessly indulged my own inclinations, irrespective of the voice of God warning and reproaching me? What chance should I have had of saving my soul in those days of dark corruption and depravity? ~ Rev. Richard F. Clarke, S.J., The Devout Year (1893)

Month of the Immaculate Conception ~ December 11th The Long Darkness (continued) 2. Yet every man had light and grace sufficient, and more than sufficient, to enable him to walk in the ways of God, and to find his way to the kingdom of heaven. But none save a very few availed themselves of it. "They loved darkness more than light." The world gradually lost all regard for virtue or for God. How grateful should I be to God that I live in happier days! ~ Rev. Richard F. Clarke, S.J., The Devout Year (1893)

Month of the Immaculate Conception ~ December 10th The Long Darkness 1. The light extinguished at the Fall was rekindled in the hearts of our first parents when the promise was given them of a Redeemer Who should undo the fatal mischief that had been done. But in their children Adam and Eve had to lament the fatal effects of that deadly evil that they had introduced into the world. As generation followed generation, thicker and thicker grew the darkness, farther and farther did men wander away from the light, that gave to each the power of guiding his feet aright from earth to heaven. Thus it is that each ill deed goes on bearing its deadly fruit, often long after the doer is dead and gone. ~ Rev. Richard F. Clarke, S.J., The Devout Year (1893)

O Come, O Come Emmanuel Month of the Immaculate Conception ~ December 9th The Announcement of His Coming (continued) 3. Yet the promise of a Redeemer rekindled the light of hope in the souls of Adam and Eve. They and all their children were ever looking and praying for His coming. God's intention was to keep them in expectancy. So too with His second coming. There has always been a tradition of expectation. "Blessed is the man whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching." Hence learn to watch and pray. Come quickly, O Lord Jesus! ~ Rev. Richard F. Clarke, S.J., The Devout Year (1893)

December 8th ~ IMMACULATE CONCEPTION of the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY This Feast commemorates the preservation of the Blessed Virgin from the stain of original sin from the first moment of her conception. It originated in the Eastern Church about the 8th century and was celebrated on Dec. 9. In the 11th century it appeared in the Western Church and was first celebrated in England; and in the 14th century it was included in the calendar of the Universal Church. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was defined by Pope Pius IX on Dec. 8, 1854. This dogma is in accord with the texts of Scripture: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed” (Gen. 3, 15), “Hail, full of grace” (Luke 1, 23), and was clearly understood and accepted by Tradition, the writings of the Fathers and by feasts observed by the general belief of the faithful long before it was defined. O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. ~ St. Joseph Daily Missal, 1956

Month of the Immaculate Conception ~ December 8th The Announcement of His Coming (continued) 2. The promise made was couched in words that gave no immediate prospect of the crushing of the serpent's head and the destruction of his power. It left the curse of sin upon the earth and its inhabitants, and announced the sorrows that would accompany them through their time of sojourn here. That law still holds. Christ came to abolish sin, but not its temporal consequences. He who sins shall suffer, is a law which Christ fulfilled and in no way destroyed. ~ Rev. Richard F. Clarke, S.J., The Devout Year (1893)

December 7th ~ FEAST of ST. AMBROSE, Bishop, Confessor, Doctor of the Church (340 - 397) St. Ambrose was one of the four great Latin Fathers and Doctors of the Western Church. As an orator, he opposed the Arian heretics. As Bishop of Milan, he had the satisfaction of witnessing the conversion of St. Augustine, whom he baptized in 387. As a writer, he enriched Latin literature with many works on Scripture, the priesthood, doctrinal subjects and hymnology. The liturgy of Milan is known as the “Ambrosian Rite.” He died in 397. St. Ambrose, pray for us. ~ St. Joseph Daily Missal, 1956

Day Nine O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, didst prepare a worthy dwelling place for Thy Son, we beseech Thee that, as by the foreseen death of this, Thy Son, Thou didst preserve her from all stain, so too Thou wouldst permit us, purified through her intercession, to come unto Thee. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who livest and reignest with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen. O Mother of the King of the Universe, most perfect member of the human race, “our tainted nature’s solitary boast,” we turn to thee as mother, advocate, and mediator. O Holy Mary, assist us in our present necessity. By thine Immaculate Conception, O Mary conceived without sin, we humbly beseech thee from the bottom of our hearts to intercede for us with thy Divine Son and ask that we be granted the favor for which we now plead. (Here mention your personal request.) O Mary of the Immaculate Conception, Mother of Christ, thou hadst influence with thy Divine Son whilst upon this earth; thou hast the same influence now in Heaven. Pray for us and obtain for us from Him the granting of this petition, if it be the Divine Will. Amen.