Basilicas in Mexico and Spain built where the Virgin Mary appeared. In Mexico, the missionaries could not convert the Indians, but the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to the little Diego, and all of Mexico became Christian, behind the Virgin of Guadalupe, and behind Mexico, all of Latin America. That is why the Virgin of Guadalupe is called “the Empress of the Americas”.
Christian Bible Dictionary
Dr. J. Dominguez
http://bible.com/dictionary/
Source: Christian Bible Dictionary
Mountainous area of the province of Cáceres with its highest altitude of 1736 meters. in Villuercas. It is famous for the Marian Sanctuary from the end of the 13th century, when the shepherd Gil Cordero discovered one of the hidden Marian images before the Saracen invasion of 711. The sanctuary that arose generated a town of the same name, in Mudejar art from the 14th century, with church built between 1389 and 1412 and a somewhat later cloister.
It is also the name of the most famous sanctuary in the Latin American world, located in the capital of Mexico and a reminder of the Marian apparition on the Tepeyacac hill to the indigenous Juan Diego on December 9, 1531, ten years after Mexico City was taken by Hernan Cortes.
The first detailed and reliable account of the apparition is the so-called Nican Mopohua of 1545. The massive devotion to the miraculous image left as a sign to the seer is one of the most captivating religious phenomena in Latin American Christian history.
The name of Guadalupe that was given to it, like several hundred others in South America, is later and probably transported by some expeditionary from peninsular Extremadura, without there being any relationship between the two Marian sanctuaries other than the similarity of the toponym. The Virgin of Guadalupe is the patron saint of Mexico and all of Latin America.
Pedro Chico González, Dictionary of Catechesis and Religious Pedagogy, Editorial Bruño, Lima, Peru 2006
Source: Dictionary of Catechesis and Religious Pedagogy
A historical fact and its meaning
Although all the Marian shrines have a strong missionary dimension, the sanctuary of the Virgin of Guadalupe offers very instructive elements, which can analogously serve to study the other Marian shrines in their missionary derivation, both those that have their beginning in an apparition, as well as those that focus, for centuries, on the veneration of an image that becomes the symbol of a people.
The text (Nican Mopohua), which narrates the apparitions of the Virgin on the Tepeyac hill (Mexico), is written in the Nahuatl indigenous language, and is attributed to Antonio Valeriano (1520-1605), a contemporary of the events. The five apparitions to the indigenous Juan Diego (1474-1548) took place in the year 1531. The documents and the approval by the ecclesiastical authority are from those dates.
The dialogue between the Virgin and the seer is of exquisite maternal tenderness, especially in some expressions “I am your pious Mother… the ever-Virgin Holy Mary Mother of God… Am I not here, who am your Mother?… Are you not here? ventura in my lap, in the egg of my hands?”… The Virgin asked that a temple be erected to her to show the people her “look of compassion”. She herself manifested her name “the ever-Virgin Saint Mary of Guadalupe.”
The bishop, Juan de Zumárraga, a Franciscan, prudently wanted to ascertain the truth of the message and even asked for a sign. At the indication of the Virgin, Juan Diego gathered roses and other flowers from the hill (although it was not the season for those flowers); the Virgin herself managed in her tilma (cloak). When appearing before the Bishop and unfolding the tilma, the flowers fell to the ground and the image of Mary appeared painted on the ayate cloth, which is preserved to this day and which, after many technical studies, has no natural explanation.
The fruits of the appearance
Since then, and with the approval of the bishop, mass conversions and pilgrimages of the Mexican faithful have taken place uninterruptedly. From the initial and humble mud hut, various temples were followed up to the current basilica. Mexican history and culture have been forged under the impulse of Guadalupe; if they dispensed with this Christian and Marian factor, it would cease to be Mexican, because they would lose “the flowers and the song” of its original indigenous expression. We must also remember other Marian sanctuaries that have their origin in the beginning of evangelization (Ocotlán, Zapopan, Izamal, San Juan de los Lagos, etc.). The Virgin of Guadalupe is the patron saint of Mexico (since 1737), of all of Latin America (Pío X, 1910) and of the Philippines (Pío XI, 1935). The pontifical coronation took place in 1895, at the request of the Mexican Episcopate, when Fr. José Antonio Plancarte y Labastida was abbot of the Guadalupe basilica.
The image of the Virgin of Guadalupe with her sanctuary can be considered a “type” of Latin America, insofar as Mary is “the great sign, with a maternal and merciful face, of the closeness of the Father and of Christ, with whom she invites us to enter into communion” (Puebla 282). She, from the beginning of evangelization, is “the incarnate gospel” in the peoples and cultures of Latin America (Puebla 446). The “Virgen Mestiza” is the sign of unity for all of Latin America.
The sanctuary of Guadalupe is an index of the inculturated faith and of the response of all Latin American peoples “Her maternal figure was decisive for the men and women of Latin America to recognize their dignity as children of God. Mary is the hallmark of the culture of our continent… She has preceded us on the pilgrimage of faith… With joy and gratitude we welcome the immense gift of her motherhood, her tenderness and protection, and we aspire to love her in the same way as Jesus Christ. I love her. That is why we invoke her as the Star of the First and of the New Evangelization” (Document of Santo Domingo 15).
evangelizing dimension
The beginnings of the evangelization of Mexico would be inexplicable without the appearance of the Virgin in Tepeyac, while, at the same time, that evangelization is shown inserted in the local and mestizo culture “Mother and educator of the nascent Latin American people, in Santa María de Guadalupe , through Blessed Juan Diego, a great example of perfectly inculturated Evangelization is offered” (Document of Santo Domingo 15). After inaugurating the chapel of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the Vatican grottoes, next to the tomb of Saint Peter (May 12, 1992), John Paul II indicated that, in this way, he makes us “remember with joy the arrival of faith in Latin America” (May 14, 1992).
It is interesting to note the importance that the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe can have, as a paradigmatic fact of catechetical, spiritual and evangelizing content. Marian worship and devotion manifest a rich Christological dimension, which invites contemplation, liturgical celebration, evangelization and closeness to man in his socio-cultural and historical situation. The “mestizo” Virgin is an ethnic sign of unity, based on the redemptive sacrifice of Christ and the mandate of love. Juan Pablo remembered that sanctuary as “a significant center of Marian devotion and a pulsating heart of evangelical irradiation in the Latin American world.” Hence, “following the example of Christ and Mary,” believers will feel “increasingly committed to serving their brothers and sisters, cultivating a preferential love for the poor” (Angelus, January 26, 1992).
References Latin America, Marian apparitions, Marian sanctuaries.
Reading of documents Puebla 282-303, 446; Santo Domingo, 15, 289, 303.
Bibliography AA.VV., Album of the 450th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Mexico, Edit. Buena Nueva, 1981); A. AMATO, Mariologia in contesto. An example of inculturated theology in the volto of Maria di Guadalupe (Puebla n.446) Marianum 125 (1980) 421-469; JJ BENITEZ, The mystery of the Virgin of Guadalupe (Barcelona, Edit. Planeta, 1982); JL GUERRERO, El Nican Mopohua, an attempt at exegesis (Mexico, Universidad Pontificia, 1996); J. LOZANO BARRAGAN, Mary in the history of salvation in Latin America, in Our Lady of America (Bogotá, CELAM, 1988) I; V. MACCAGNAN, Guadalupe, in New Dictionary of Mariology (Madrid, Paulinas, 1988) 801-819.
(ESQUERDA BIFET, Juan, Dictionary of Evangelization, BAC, Madrid, 1998)
Source: Dictionary of Evangelization