THE VISITATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY What It Means for Us

The Visitation by Evelyn Pickering De Morgan , 1883

by Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.

            While the feast of Mary’s Visitation to Elizabeth has been celebrated on other dates, the liturgical calendar revision authorized by Pope Paul VI placed it on May 31 -- after the Annunciation (March 25) and before the Birthday of St. John the Baptist (June 24).

            Most likely the feast of the Visitation originated with the Franciscans in 1263.  However, there is lack of certainty about the origin and the various dates that have been assigned to the feast.  By the late 14th century the celebration of the feast was well established.

Theme of the feast

            The theme of the Visitation feast centers on Mary responding to the prompting of the Holy Spirit to set out on a mission of charity.  This is reflected in the opening prayer and the prayer over the gifts, and in the canticle antiphons for Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer.  With John the Baptist we recognize joyfully the presence of Christ.  The feast clearly celebrates the first chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel.

            Church documents attest to the importance of the feast.

            In its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) , #57, the Second Vatican Council states: 

“This union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ’s virginal conception up to his death; first when Mary, arising in haste to go to visit Elizabeth, is greeted by her as blessed because of her belief in the promise of salvation and the precursor leaped with joy in the womb of his mother.”  (cf. Lk 1:41-45)

            Venerable Pope Paul VI in Marialis Cultus, #7, observes that in the “celebrations that commemorate salvific events in which the Blessed Virgin Mary was closely associated with her son” . . . “the liturgy [of the Visitation] recalls the Blessed Virgin carrying her Son within her and visiting Elizabeth to offer charitable assistance and to proclaim the mercy of God.”

            In Redemptoris Mater, #12, Pope St. John Paul II wrote:

“Moved with charity, therefore, Mary goes to the house of her kinswoman....  While every word of Elizabeth is filled with meaning, her final words would seem to have a fundamental importance: ‘And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her from the Lord’ (Lk 1:45).  These words can be linked with the title ‘full of grace’ of the angel’s greeting.  Both of these texts reveal an essential Mariological content, namely, the truth about Mary who has become really present in the mystery of Christ because she ‘has believed,’ the fullness of grace announced by the angel means the gift of God himself.  Mary’s faith proclaimed by Elizabeth indicated how the Virgin of Nazareth responded to this gift.

Meaning of the feast

            The thrust of chapters one and two of Luke’s Gospel is not simply a family event between Elizabeth and Mary.  The Visitation is an event of salvation history.  Elizabeth, a model of the Old Testament, meets the New Testament in Mary’s faith in the mystery of her own destiny.  But what is most significant is the meeting of their unborn children.  John, who leaps in his mother’s womb, is already anticipating his role as precursor of the Messiah.

            In the Visitation narrative we look to Mary as model of the apostolate of the Church.  She brings Jesus and a blessing on the house of Zechariah.  The experience of the primitive Church was that the power of the Lord was the greatest gift it had to offer.  To bring Jesus will always be the supreme norm of any genuine apostolate.  The Church’s mission is to show Jesus as wisdom and power in each situation of human need.

            While the prayer after communion invites us to recognize the presence of Christ among us in the Eucharist, we must remember that the presence of Christ is discovered not only in the Eucharist.  He is met in others, and he asks us to serve him in others.  Mary’s service for Elizabeth by her visit remains a model for the Christian who wishes to meet Christ in daily life.

Liturgy and life nourish faith

            Like us, Mary had to walk by faith.  One writer likens faith to darkness and light.  It is dark because we cannot fully grasp divine truth.  It is light since faith brings us to truths we cannot know otherwise.  Mary walked in the light of faith.  God told her enough about his plan for her to make each new step.  Faith is not only intellectual, that is, belief.  Faith is also trust and action.

            Pope St. John Paul II in Redemptoris Mater, #14, offers an inspiring account of Mary’s faith. 

“To believe means to abandon oneself to the truth of the word of the living God, knowing and humbly recognizing ‘how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways’

 (Rm 11:33).  Mary, who by the eternal will of the Most High stands, one may say, at the very center of those inscrutable judgments of God, conforms herself to them in the dim light of faith, accepting fully and with a ready heart everything that is decreed in the divine plan.”

            Faith means to say “amen” (so be it) to the word, the command, and the promises of God.

            An important element of Mary’s faith is also common to ours.  God speaks to us through others.  We come to know God and his saving plan through people in the Christian community; for example, parents, teachers, preachers, and others.  Revelation is not made directly to us.  Except for the special experience of the Annunciation, Mary came to know God’s will through others.

            Mary’s faith, which is praised by Elizabeth, draws her to the dignity of being the Mother of Jesus and still greater to being a true disciple of the Lord.  Faith was not easier for her than for us.  The contrary is true.  For Mary it was more difficult to believe than for the apostles.  She understood more of God’s plan.  Pope St. John Paul II commented that the expression, “blessed is she who believed,” is a key unlocking the innermost reality of Mary.  Being aware that this faith was difficult, involving deep struggle, gives us an insight into Mary’s life and evidence of her likeness to us, sharing completely in the human condition, but without sin.

BOOK BLOG TOUR for Fatima: The Apparition that Changed the World - Book Review

Happy Feast Day!

Today we celebrate the Feast Day of Our Lady of Fatima.   This day also marks the 100th year anniversary of the apparitions at Fatima, Portugual.  It is fitting therefore that Catholic author and well-known blogger, Jean Heimann 's wonderful new book has been published as we commemorate this blessed occasion.  The book is Fatima:  The Apparition that Changed the World.  This book must be really special as it is not only published by Tan Books, a publishing company noted for their fine Catholic books, but the introduction was written by none other than David Carollo, the executive director of the World Apostolate of Fatima.

Those of us who have a devotion to Our Lady of Fatima will notice that there are plenty of new books available during this  Fatima centennial.  Personally speaking, I was having a hard time wondering which book I should read.  I was looking for a book that would explain in easy to understand terms, chronologically, the events that occurred, and written without any personal bias.  I really believe it was Divine Providence that led me to Jean Heimann's book.  It was as if it were custom written with my specifications in mind.  I think this book, which is not at all long yet chock-filled with pertinent information on all things relating to the Fatima apparitions, will appeal to just about everyone.  All ages, male and female, religious and the laity and even non-Catholics will find this little treasure of a book an invaluable resource.

The book is written in Jean's clear style of writing.  The book begins with a comprehensive timeline of events.  There are many good books that have been written to explain Our Lady of Fatima's messages to the three young shepherd children, but I cannot recall one that specifically explains not only the messages but also when things occurred.  The fact that Jean took the time to give us the timeline alone makes this book a valuable Fatima resource.

Along with the timeline of all the events, there are beautiful photographs throughout the book.  There are also explanations of certain terms which makes the Fatima experience more meaningful.  For example, the writer explains quite clearly what our lady meant by reparation.  It stresses the importance of our Lady's messages such as penance, prayers and sacrifices for poor sinners.  She gives background on the history of the holy rosary.  Her writing also gives us a better impression on the characters of the shepherd children.  This is important because we understand them to be holy children but also your normal, playful children as well.

Jean does not shy away from the scarier messages of hell either.  The reader will no doubt try to avoid hell as much as possible.  She also writes about the Fatima popes and their handling of the Our Lady's messages.

I highly recommend this beautiful little book.  It will give the reader a better appreciation for this Fatima jubilee.

Sister Lucia on Keeping the Lord's Day Holy

"Do you keep the third commandment of the Law of God which requires us to observe Sundays and the Holydays of Obligation?  Do you do so by abstaining from servile work and going to Mass? Remember that God says in Holy Scripture:  Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. (Ex: 31, 15)  Note the expression God uses here:  a day consecrated to the Lord.  Hence, the Lord's Day is not to be passed in idleness, still less in unlawful pleasures, in vice or any kind of sin.  Sundays and Holydays are to be used to bring us close to God by taking part in the Eucharistic Liturgy and other devotions, reading good books which give us a better knowledge of God and of His laws so that we can fulfill them better, and engaging in wholesome entertainment which will enable us to recuperate our physical and moral energies.  Only thus can we have an easy conscience and be certain of fulfilling the Law of the Lord."

FATIMA IN FOCUS

by Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.

          May 13, 2017, marked the one hundredth anniversary of Our Lady's first apparition at Fatima.  She appeared  there each month from May to October in 1917 on the thirteenth of each month.

Like the apparitions of Our Lady at Guadalupe and at Lourdes, her apparitions at Fatima are known far and wide across the world in both religious and secular circles.  To appreciate more clearly the impact of Mary’s appearances at Fatima, it is important for us to know something about the conditions in Portugal at the time of the appearances in 1917.  The events need to be placed in historical context. 

The historical, political, social circumstances

For centuries Portugal had distinguished itself by its zeal for the spread of the Christian faith. But in the eighteenth century the government was influenced by anti-religious ideas and, from that time, Freemasonry set about de-Christianizing the country. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the moral and religious situation in Portugal was abysmal. In 1911, the separation of Church and State became official. The years from 1910 to 1913 were years of terror: priests and bishops were imprisoned or exiled; religious orders were suppressed; almost all the seminaries were closed and confiscated; missions languished or were abandoned. Freemasonry was in control. From 1910 to 1926 Portugal experienced 16 revolutions with 40 changes of government officials. 

The apparitions and their message

Then, on May 13, 1917, a shining Lady appeared to three little shepherds near Fatima, a Portuguese village. They were Jacinta, seven years old; Francisco, her brother, nine years old; their cousin, Lucia, ten years old.

The brilliant Lady encouraged them to pray the rosary, a summary of the Gospel, and to offer acts of penance. Then she asked them to return on the 13th of the next five months. The children were faithful in coming, except for August 13, for the mayor, a Mason, had them imprisoned at that time. He had threatened to cast them into a caldron of boiling oil if they did not reveal the secret confided to them by the Lady.

At each meeting, the Lady revealed to them a little more of God’s designs. She foretold future misfortunes which they were to keep secret for the time being, and which were recently revealed by the sole survivor, Lucia. These had to do with an even more terrible war than the current one of 1914-1918. The Lady asked for the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for only through her could the aid of God come to the world. On the last apparition, that of October 13, she promised a great miracle which everyone would be able to see.

Curiosity drew ever larger numbers that accompanied the little visionaries to each meeting: there were some 25,000 to 30,000 on September 13; about 70,000 on October 13.

That day, on which the great miracle promised by the Virgin Mary was to take place, rain poured all morning. The crowd was soaked.  But at noon the skies cleared. Mary appeared to the three shepherds and revealed her name: Lady of the Rosary. She asked that people be converted and pray. Then, in the sight of the 70,000 spectators, the sun, which had just appeared through the clouds, began to rotate or spin three times.  Each rotation lasted three or four minutes, illuminating the trees, the crowd, the earth, with all the colors of a rainbow. Then it zigzagged in the sky and descended as though to fall into the crowd. People fell to the ground crying for mercy. Then the sun returned to its proper place. The spectators noticed that their clothes were completely dry.

News of this miracle, witnessed by 70,000 people, including a number hostile to religion, spread like wildfire throughout Portugal and made a tremendous impression. The material miracle was but a sign of another miracle, the enlightenment of souls and the conversion of the country. 

The aftermath

Less than two weeks after the last apparition, a first sign of a new attitude manifested itself in the protest by an influential antichristian newspaper against a sacrilegious attack by a group of sectarians at Fatima. In 1918, the bishops were recalled from exile and were able to hold a meeting at Lisbon. The military chaplaincy was reinstated and relations with the Holy See reestablished. At that point, the Masonic lodges had the president of the Republic of Portugal assassinated. They sought to reinstate the control of the anticlericals, but their efforts failed.

Come 1936, a new great danger menaced the land. The Russian Bolshevists decided to establish atheistic communism in Spain and Portugal in order to spread it more successfully in the east and in the west, throughout all Christian Europe. We know what success they had in Spain. Portugal seemed unable to resist their activity, organized with satanic cleverness. To dispel the danger, the bishops saw salvation only in the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1936, they promised, by what was termed an anticommunist oath, to make a pilgrimage of the entire nation to Fatima if Portugal were preserved from the peril which was threatening it.

 While, on the other side of the frontier in Spain, the “Reds” were massacring, profaning, pillaging, burning priests and men and women religious and churches and convents, trying to extirpate the last vestiges of Christianity, Portugal enjoyed peace. And so, in 1938, an enormous pilgrimage of a half-million faithful was on route to Fatima to thank the Virgin for her miraculous protection.

In 1940, Portugal signed with the Holy See the most perfect concordat, from the Christian point of view, ever signed in recent times. The faith is proclaimed throughout the entire country with pride, the sacraments are frequented, Catholic Action flourished, ecclesiastical vocations multiplied.  In eight years the number of religious had quadrupled. In keeping with the prediction of the Virgin at Fatima, the Second World War was much more horrible than the first. Yet, though most of the nations of the world were involved in the indescribable calamities and anguish, Portugal continued with its tranquil life under the protection of Mary. 

The Church’s action

The ecclesiastical inquiry into the facts of Fatima was opened in November of 1917.  However, because of circumstances, a verdict was rendered only thirteen years later, on October 13, 1930. Meanwhile, pilgrimages continued to arrive, always more numerous, and usually on the 13th of each month. Cures were taking place. In 1926, a board of review was established similar to the one at Lourdes. More than a thousand cures, scientifically unexplainable had been registered by 1955.

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the apparitions at Fatima, the ecclesiastical authority judged the moment suitable for revealing in part what Our Lady of the Rosary had asked Lucia to keep secret for the time being.

In his radio message of October 31, 1942, to the pilgrims gathered at Fatima, Pope Pius XII consecrated the Church and the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He renewed this consecration the following December 8 in Rome. The bishops of the whole world also made this consecration for their individual dioceses on March 28, 1943. We know that the Pope Pius XII confided to Cardinal Tedeschini that he himself had seen the solar phenomenon on October 30 and 31, and on November 1 and 8, 1954, on the occasion of the definition of the dogma of the Assumption.

          The impact of Fatima

The message of Fatima has been heard in Portugal, and Mary’s goodness has marvelously repaid it. Has it been heard in the rest of the world?  Certainly not enough.  Otherwise wars among nations by armies, and “cold wars,” and fratricides within countries would have ended long ago.

However, not all have turned a deaf ear. The message of Fatima has been received in part, at least, by a great number of Christians.  Devotion to the rosary continues to gain favor and reaches into many countries. As has been said, all the dioceses of the world have been consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the bishops.   The visits of the Pilgrim Virgin statues have been received with tremendous enthusiasm not only by Catholic populations, but by some Protestants and Muslims as well.

 The message of Fatima has moved many and has contributed to making our era an Age of Mary. It has not spoken its final word. What that word will be depends on the cooperation which Our Lady of Fatima receives from us.  She extends this call and invitation to each of us.

These words of St. Thomas Aquinas, later used by Franz Werfel about Lourdes, apply also to Fatima: “For those who believe, no explanation is necessary.  For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.”

ROSARY GUIDELINES

by Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.

          Any expression of Christian spirituality gives prominent place to Mary, Mother of our Redeemer.   Praying is at the heart of living the Gospel, and that normally includes praying her rosary.  The rosary is a means of summarizing the Gospel.  This enables us to live the rosary by entwining its prayers and mysteries into the very fabric of our lives.

In praying the rosary we offer our Spiritual Mother a garland of roses, our heartfelt conversation. 

          In the rosary we find a unique synthesis of the entire Gospel,  both Scripture and Tradition, in a beautifully Marian format that is easily remembered as we implore God's grace.

          Pope St. John Paul II taught that praying the rosary is "a most effective way of fostering among the faithful that commitment to contemplation of the Christian mystery and a genuine training in holiness."  He regarded the rosary as "an exquisitely contemplative prayer" and "a treasure to be rediscovered." 

          More than one hundred official documents of the papal magisterium attest to the efficacy of the rosary as a school of virtue and contemplation and a means of obtaining divine graces.  The rosary succeeds in protecting our gift of faith from all kinds of sin because it is a gift from God, the  weapon chosen for us by Our Lady.  The Servant of God, Frank Duff, reminded us that the rosary is our "prime devotion" because it contains Mary.  Barbara  Kloss, a twentieth century mystic of Poland, was told by Our Lady, "I am wholly in the rosary.  Seek me there...find me there."

          Archbishop Fulton Sheen once compared the rosary to the Eucharist:  "What the Eucharist is in the order of the sacraments, the rosary is in the order of sacramentals."   This means, he continues, "the rosary contains Mary."

          For Maisie Ward, the noted British writer and publisher, the rosary is a guide to reality.  If the rosary contains Mary, then it also contains the Holy Spirit, spouse of Mary and the Spirit of truth (Jn 16:13), the only true guide to reality.

          Taking his cue from the Joyful Mysteries, Pope St. John Paul II tells how the rosary transports us to reality.  "The rosary mystically transports us to Mary's side as she is busy watching over the human growth of Jesus in the home of Nazareth.  This enables her to train us and mold us with the same care until Christ is 'fully formed' in us (Gal 4:19).  By immersing us in the Redeemer's life, the rosary insures that what Jesus has done and what the liturgy makes present is profoundly assimilated and shapes our existence."

          Since our objective is to live the Gospel, we are called to live the rosary, an epitome of the Gospel, all the time.  This requires skillfully entwining its mysteries in our lives.  By doing so we become divinized by incorporating the virtues of Jesus and Mary by praying always with Mary.  Living the rosary continually requires a deep respect and real love for the rosary by recognizing at its core Jesus, love incarnate -- "the way, the truth, and the life."

          "Abide in me and I in you," says Jesus, because "without me you can do nothing."

         

Sister Lucia on Modesty of Clothing - Fatima

"Notice, however, that it is not only for these two reasons -- punishment and penance for our sins - that God clothes us {regarding Adam and Eve's awareness of their nakedness caused by their grievous sin]; it served other purposes too.  Besides being a protection against sin, the modest clothing with which we must c\cover ourselves is a distinguishing mark setting us apart in the stream of immorality and enabling us to be, for the world, true witnesses of Christ."

WAY OF THE CROSS

by Brother John Samaha, S.A.

Christians have never been required to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem as Muslims have been required to visit Mecca to commemorate Muhammad's hegira or flight.  Rather Christian holy places have been transported to churches  across the world in the form of the stations of the cross.  "Making the stations" requires only moving from one station to the next.  The stations themselves, although often accompanied by elaborate artistic depictions, are simply small wooden crosses.

        A tradition holds that the Virgin Mary daily retraced the steps of the way of the cross.  However, only in the Middle Ages did this devotion flourish.  In the earliest centuries of Christianity the focus was on the risen Christ.  Medieval Christians emphasized the passion and death of Jesus and wished to tread in his very footsteps.  Those who could afford to do so made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.   Others had the Holy Land brought to them in the form of the stations of the cross, reproductions of the holy places of Jerusalem erected in their locales. 

        When the Franciscans were given custody of the holy places of Jerusalem in 1343,  they aroused in the faithful an active interest in the passion of Christ.  In the eighteenth century the Franciscan St. Leonard of Port Maurice, "preacher of the way of the cross," spread the devotion widely, making it possible for non-Franciscan churches t0 have the stations.  Previously this was not allowed. 

        Originally fourteen stations were the norm.  In 1975 Pope Paul VI approved a fifteenth station, the resurrection.

A Lenten Reflection - The Story of a Prince

"There was once a king, lord of many kingdoms, who had one only son, so beautiful, so holy, so amiable, that he was the delight of his father, who loved him as much as himself. This young prince had a great affection for one of his slaves; so much so that, the slave having committed a crime for which he had been condemned to death, the prince offered himself to die for the slave; the father, being jealous of justice, was satisfied to condemn his beloved son to death, in order that the slave might remain free from the punishment that he deserved: and thus the son died a malefactor's death, and the slave was freed from punishment."

- Saint Alphonsus di Liguori, The Passion and Death of Jesus Christ

OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE AND SAINT JUAN DIEGO

Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.

          There exist two miraculous images of Our Lady of Guadalupe: one in Spain, the older, and one in Mexico, the more famous.  Both are known by the same name because of some linguistic confusion.

          The original image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Spain is an unpainted wooden statue carved in an Oriental style.  It was presented to Bishop Leander of Seville in 580 by Pope Gregory the Great.  This statue was widely revered by the people of Spain until the invasion by the Moors in 771.  At that time it was hidden for safekeeping along with some historical documents explaining its special identity.

          Those who had preserved and documented the statue died in the conquest and knowledge of its whereabouts was lost for 600 years.   In 1326 Gil Cordero, a poor cowherd, was searching for a lost cow when he saw the radiant figure of a lady appear at the edge of the woods.  The lady told him about a buried treasure and showed him where to dig to find it.  She requested that a chapel be built at that location.  Gil reported the apparition to the local clergy and brought them to the place where the lady said the treasure lay. Both the statue and its historical documents were found in perfect condition in an underground cave.

          King Alfonso built the chapel, and the statue named for the nearby town of Guadalupe was enshrined.  Soon miracles were attributed to the veneration of the statue, and the shrine became one of the most popular places of pilgrimage in Spain.  Tradition holds that Christopher Columbus visited the shrine before making his first voyage to the New World, and carried a likeness of the statue on his voyages.  The conquistadors also carried a replica of the statue with them while on their conquests in America.

          In 1531 on December 9, only 39 years after Columbus discovered the western hemisphere, an Indian convert to Christianity, Juan Diego, was crossing Tepeyac Hill near Mexico City on his way to Mass.  As he paused he heard celestial music  which he said sounded like a "choir of birds."  When looking up he saw a golden cloud arched by a rainbow.  Affectionately a voice called to him: "Juanito, Juan Diegito,"  and out of the cloud a beautiful young girl, about 16 years old and of Mexican appearance, stood before him.  She spoke to him in Nahuatl, his native dialect, and asked where he was going.  He replied that he was going to Mass and religious instruction.

          The young woman told him that she was the "Mother of the  true God who gives life."  She explained that she wanted to help the poor native Indians  and that she would like to have a chapel built on the hill so that the Indians would have a place to come to her.  At one time that hill had been the site of a shrine to the Aztec goddess of the earth and harvest, Tonantzin.  The pagan shrine had been destroyed by the Christian conquerors. 

          The Lady asked Juan to take her message to Bishop Juan

Zumarraga in Tenochtitlan, which became Mexico City.  Although 57 years old, Juan had lived his entire life in or near his native village of Tolpetlac.  He had never been to Tenochtital which was only about five miles from his home.  However he agreed to undertake the Lady's mission, even though it meant venturing into unfamiliar territory to see a person he had never met.

          At the bishop's residence the servants were amazed that a lowly Indian  would request a meeting with the bishop.  They kept Juan waiting for hours before informing the bishop that Juan was waiting.  When Juan finally spoke with the bishop, matters did not go well.  The bishop was polite, but he was clearly skeptical of  what Juan told him.  As a conciliatory gesture, the bishop told Juan he was welcome to come again to visit, if he wished.

          A disappointed Juan Diego returned to the hill and reported his failure to the Lady.   He asked that she select another messenger because he was a "nobody."  However the Lady told Juan there were others she could have sent, but she chose him.  Then she asked him to try again the following day, a Sunday.  The next day Juan returned to the bishop's residence, and again he was made to wait for hours before he was admitted.  Again the bishop listened patiently but remained incredulous.  He asked Juan to bring him a sign and then he would seriously consider seriously the request to build a chapel.

          After Juan reported another failure and the bishop's insistence on a sign, the Lady asked him to meet her again on Monday and she would give him a sign for the bishop. However Juan did not keep the appointment.  His uncle, Juan Bernardino, who had raised him from early childhood, was seriously ill.  Juan remained at home on Monday to care for his uncle.  Juan Bernardino was near death and on Tuesday asked his nephew to bring him a priest.  Upset because he had not kept his appointment with the Lady the day before, Juan chose another path to avoid the hill en route to the village.  But the Lady was aware of this and blocked his path.  She assured him that his uncle would be fine and not to worry.  She then instructed him to ascend the hill and gather the flowers he would find there.  Very little vegetation grew on that desolate hill at any time of year let alone flowers in December.  But Juan did as he was told.  There Juan found Castilian roses, which had not yet been brought to Mexico, but would be familiar to the Spanish bishop.  Using his tilma, or cloak, as an apron he gathered as many of the blooms as he could carry and took them to the Lady.  She arranged them in Juan's tilma.  Holding the edges of the tilma close to his chest, Juan proceeded to visit Bishop Zumarraga again.

          Encountering Juan Diego again at the bishop's residence, the bishop's servants tried to persuade him to leave.  But Juan Diego held his ground and expressed his determination to stay as long as necessary.  Eventually some of the bishop's staff became curious about what was in his tilma.  Juan refused to show them, and they threatened force.  Reluctantly Juan opened one corner to allow them a glimpse of the flowers and sniff their fragrance.  Immediately one of the servants rushed to tell the bishop.  The bishop asked that Juan be brought to him at once.

          Juan Diego explained to Bishop Zumarraga that the Mother of God directed him to bring the flowers to the bishop as a sign.  Juan opened his tilma and roses cascaded to the floor.  The bishop fell to his knees in reverence of the image that appeared on the cloak.  Juan also was astonished at the picture.  The bishop invited Juan Diego to stay the night, and the bishop took the tilma to his quarters to be alone with it. 

          News of the miracle spread quickly .  By morning the entire city was clamoring  to see the miraculous image.  The tilma was taken to the cathedral so that all could venerate it. 

         

          Though Juan Diego believed the Lady when she told him his uncle was fine, he was still anxious to see for himself.   After showing Bishop Zumarrga where the apparitions occurred on Tepeyac Hill, the two were joined by a throng of followers as  they returned to  his village. 

          Indeed Juan Bernardino was fine and had an amazing story of his own to tell.  After Juan Diego had left on Tuesday morning to find a priest, and as Juan Bernardino felt his life ebbing, a beautiful young Mexican woman appeared to him.  Immediately he felt his strength return, and he knelt before her.  The Lady told him not to worry about his nephew because she had sent him to the bishop with her image imprinted in his tilma.  She also told Juan Bernardino the name by which she wished to be remembered.

          The Spanish image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Mexican image became entwined in the popular understanding.  Neither Juan Diego nor Juan Bernardino spoke Spanish.  Their conversations and dealings with Bishop Zumarraga were conducted through an interpreter.  When the name by which the Lady wished to be called was heard by the bishop, he thought Juan Diego was trying to say "the Ever Virgin Holy Mary of Guadalupe," a name familiar to him.  Consequently that is what he called her image on the tilma.  Since the Lady spoke to these two men in their native language, it is dubious that she used the word "Guadalupe," since Guadalupe can neither be spoken nor spelled in Nahuatl because this Aztec language contains neither the letter "d" nor "g."  No Indian writings about the miracle use the word Guadalupe; they prefer Tonantizen, the name of the former pagan shrine at that spot, or other pagan names.  While the bishop never offered a correction, he was most likely aware of his error because he referred to the image as the Immaculate Conception when writing to Cortez  to invite him to join the procession to the first chapel built to house it.  Some thought the bishop made a mistake and that Juan Bernardino used a word that sounded like Guadalupe.  Earlier scholars speculated the Lady said Tequantlaxopeuh, pronounced Tequetalope, which means "Who saves us from the Devourer."   Devourer is Satan and the dreaded pagan serpent-god Quetzalcoatl to whom 2,000 Aztecs  were sacrificed each year.  Some think the word the Virgin used was more likely Coatlaxopeuh, pronounced Coatallope which means "she who breaks, stamps, or crushes the serpent.  This is reminiscent of both the winged serpent Quetzalcoatl and Satan, and recalls Genesis 3:15.

          The Indians were treated cruelly by their Spanish conquerors under the leadership of Don Nune de Guzman, who believed the Indians were not truly human and therefore unworthy of evangelization.  To him the Indians were soulless and deserved to be exploited.  Neither did Bishop Zumarraga and his associates have a high appreciation of the Indians, but they did believe that because the Indians had the ability to reason they could attain salvation through baptism.  For this the Indians were accorded a degree of respect.  On the other hand, most Indians had no interest or desire to give up their own gods in favor of the God offered by the Spaniards.  Juan Diego and Juan Bernardino were clearly exceptions.  Fearing an Indian rebellion, the bishop sent a message to Charles V begging that Guzman be replaced.  Charles agreed with Zumarraga, but the distance between Spain and Mexico delayed the replacement.  The Lady, however, was prompt.  Her apparitions and the miracle of the tilma were the turning point in the Christianization of the Indians.  The Indians recognized signs and symbols in the picture on the tilma that were meaningless to the Europeans.  As a result eight million Indians were converted in the seven years following the apparitions.

          The first chapel where the tilma hung took only 13 days to build.  Juan Diego was appointed custodian and lived in an adjacent lean-to shelter.   

For 17 years until his death in 1548 he greeted pilgrims and explained his experience.

         

         

         

           

         

UNDERSTANDING MARY’S IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.

          At the beginning of the liturgical year we honor the immaculately conceived Virgin Mary. The solemnity of Mary’s Immaculate Conception is celebrated on December 8, and honors the conception of Mary in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, without original sin.   

          In 2008 we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Blessed Virgin’s apparitions at Lourdes, where she identified herself to St. Bernadette as the Immaculate Conception.  In 2004 we observed the 150th anniversary of Blessed Pope Pius IX’s solemn definition of this dogma on December 8, 1854.  Blessed Pius IX explained that Mary was preserved from original sin by a “singular grace and privilege” given her by God “in view of the merits of Jesus Christ,” Redeemer of the human race.  Mary, like every other human being, needed the redemptive benefits of Christ.  But in anticipation of what God did for all through Christ, she alone was preserved from original sin “from the first moment of her conception.”  As one writer asserted, hers was a “redemption by exemption.”  By her Immaculate Conception she was conceived in the fullness of grace, in the state of closest possible union with God in view of her future role as the Mother of the Redeemer.

          The feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary was celebrated already in the seventh century in Palestine as the Conception by St. Anne of the Theotokos (Mother of God) on December 9.  The doctrine is understood differently by some Eastern Christian Churches because of a variance in their theological understanding of original

sin.  The observance spread west from Constantinople.  Still called the Conception of St. Anne and observed on December 8, it was prominent in Naples in the ninth century; in English monasteries in the eleventh century, when it was called the feast of the conception of Our Lady; and in France in the twelfth century.

           When the feast was introduced in France, St. Bernard of Clairvaux opposed it, igniting a controversy that endured for three centuries.  Most Scholastic theologians, including St. Anselm of Canterbury, St. Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Bonaventure opposed the doctrine on the grounds that it detracted from the universality of the redemption by Christ.  But it was defended and explained with theological clarity in the thirteenth century by Blessed John Duns Scotus, a Franciscan.  In 1263 the Franciscans adopted the feast.

          The opponents of this feast and doctrine had argued that Mary had to be touched by original sin for at least an instant, even though she was sanctified in her mother’s womb.  John Duns Scotus resolved these objections by explaining that Christ can save and redeem in two ways: he can rescue from sin those already fallen; or he can preserve one from being touched by sin even for an instant.  Mary was granted “redemption by exemption.”

          The Council of Basel in 1439 affirmed this belief.  Ten years later the Sorbonne in Paris required all its degree candidates to pledge an oath to defend the Immaculate Conception of Mary.  Pope Sixtus IV in 1476 approved the feast with its proper Mass and Office, and in 1708 Pope Clement IX extended the feast to the universal Church and made it a holyday of obligation.

           Later the Council of Trent (1545-1563) explicitly declared that Mary was exempt from the taint of original sin.  From then on the belief was embraced generally and defended by all schools of

theology.  Many Catholic thinkers and founders of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries promoted and expounded Mary’s Immaculate Conception with special interest and verve, and this doctrine became an important part of many Marian spiritualities.  One such exponent was Blessed William Joseph Chaminade (1761-1850), founder of the Marianists. 

          At the First Council of Baltimore in 1846 the Catholic bishops of the United States of America chose Mary under the title of her Immaculate Conception as the patron saint of the nation.  This deepened interest in the vast new country.

          The apparition of Mary Immaculate to St. Catherine Laboure in 1830 at Paris had also advanced this devotion.  At that time Mary asked the young nun to produce the Miraculous Medal, which honored the Immaculate Conception.  And the solemn definition in 1854 was the culmination of this development.  Like an additional seal of approval on the definition four years later Mary appeared to the uneducated and sickly youngster, St. Bernadette Soubirous, at Lourdes.  When Bernadette asked the Virgin Mary on March 25, 1858, to identify herself, Mary replied, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

          In 1863 a new Mass and Office were composed for the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.  This feast is also celebrated as the Conception of Mary by the Church of England.   Among the Eastern Christian Churches the feast of the Conception by St. Anne of the Most Holy Theotokos continues to be observed on December 9.  The date set for this feast is nine months before the Birth of Mary on September 8. 

          To celebrate the centenary of the definition of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, Pope Pius XII, a devout apostle of Mary, declared 1954 a Marian Year -- the first.

         

          Now, more than 150 years later, we are privileged to continue to honor that solemn definition  of Mary's "redemption by exemption" and its recognition by Mary Immaculate at Lourdes.   

          “O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you.”