Our Lady of Guadalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe
cinops be gone Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The following are excerpts from Father Frank A. Pavone’s booklet, Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Pro-Life Movement:

Our Lady of Guadalupe has many connections with the pro-life cause. On December 3, 1531, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a Christian convert named Juan Diego. Entering the bishop’s quarters, Juan Diego knelt and explained that the Lady had provided a sign so that he would believe her message. He unfolded his tilma, and the exquisite, fragrant flowers spilled at the bishop’s feet. This was miracle enough, but the second miracle caused the bishop and those with him to fall to their knees: a stunning image of the Lady from heaven appeared on the inside of the tilma.
But the Aztecs saw that this seemingly humble woman was greater than Huitzilopochtli, their sun-god of war, for she stood in front of the sun. Her foot rested on the crescent moon, symbolizing that she was more powerful than their feathered serpent moon-god Quetzalcoatl…. As in Revelation, she is pregnant, symbolized by the black band tied in knot around her waist. She points her finger to the cross on her brooch. The Christ Child within her is the God to whom she prays. This image, still preserved on the Juan Diego’s tilma, hangs in the basilica outside Mexico City.

During this period of their history, the Aztecs received a message of hope. After the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the presence of the image among them, some nine million people converted to Christ, and human sacrifice was abolished. … Our Lady turned the Aztecs’ world view of despair to one of hope…The mythology of feathered serpents and sun-god may not be present today, but there is very real despair. People do not get abortions because of freedom of choice; they get them because they feel they have no freedom and no choice…. They feel trapped, abandoned, desperate and afraid.
Priests for Life have collected thousands of postabortion case studies from women. … No one wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw of its own leg.

What does the image of Our Lady of Guadeloupe say to those who suffered despair? First, Our Lady of Guadalupe is pregnant: she carries God within her womb. The God of the universe has become a human being. God has become our brother. In his encyclical, The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II states: Mary thus helps the Church to realize that life is always at the centre of a great struggle between good and evil, between light and darkness. The dragon wishes to devour “the child brought forth” (cf. Revelation 12:4), a figure of Christ …. But in a way that child is also a figure of every person, every child, especially helpless baby whose life is threatened... God and Our Lady says, “I am with you.”

The pro-life people praying at the abortion clinics also say, “I am with you.” and they stand with all women in need. The pro-life movement embraces with love and compassion all who have had or participated in abortions.

George H. Kubeck. Duplicate and or translate into Spanish or Vietnamese.