ONE MOTHER, ONE MESSAGE
By Rev. Edward J. Melvin, C.M.
MYSTERY OF THE MIRACULOUS MEDAL
UNFOLDS IN LOURDES AND FATIMA
Guadalupe's Miracle and Message
Not quit four decades after Columbus discovered America and slightly more than one decade after the Spaniards first set foot on what is now Mexico, God in a special way showed His love for us by sending to us His Mother. And His Mother gave to us a unique and wonderful gift: Her own self-portrait miraculously impressed upon the tilma of Juan Diego, a humble unlettered Aztec Indian.
The portrait itself had confounded art experts through the centuries who have examined it minutely. By all natural laws the tilma, a coarsely-woven cloak of cactus fiber, should long ago have disintegrated, especially so since for over a century it hung in the open, whereas now it is covered with glass. No art expert has ever been able to explain the method of application of the media used for impressing the portrait on the tilma. No painting known to exist has the natural life-like quality of the portrait of Our Lady of Guadalupe - and certainly nothing comparable to it was known or is available dating back to the early part of the 16th century. Moreover, of a group of five ophthalmologists who examined the eyes of the portrait through their ophthalmoscopes in May of 1956, each found he was "looking into a human eye" (this is authenticated by a certificate dated May 26, 1956, signed by the five).
This portrait was left to us by Our Lady in the year 1531. The Indians saw something in the Image of Our Lady that the Spaniards did not comprehend. In that period, the Indians did their writing in hieroglyphics, so to them the Image was a "hieroglyphic letter." The fact that the natives "read" the picture is most important in understanding the purpose of Our Lady's Apparitions. Even for us, over four centuries later, the Image is to be "read," looked at, mentally contemplated.
To the Indians, the Image depicted a beautiful Lady standing in front of the sun, a sign to them that she was greater than the sun god whom they worshiped. The crescent beneath her feet showed that their moon god was less than nothing since she was standing on it.
Among the phenomena in the skies at some early date in Indian history was a comet which caused untold destruction. This long comet was looked upon as a god in wrath, shaped like a fiery flying serpent that sought vengeance and demanded living sacrifices. Many Mexicans have told me it was that serpent which Mary crushed.
The Indians noted that the Lady was not of this world, for an angel with wings was holding her aloft with his two arms; he is dressed with a tunic like the Virgin's and has a golden brooch without a cross fastened to it, which indicates that the angels were not redeemed by the cross as was man. At the Lady's throat was a brooch, with a small black cross in the center, reminding them that this was the emblem of the Spanish Friars, and her lovely hands were joined in prayer, showing that there was ONE greater than she.
It is interesting to note that the Gospel of the Mass of Our Lady of Guadalupe is that of the Visitation, when Mary was with Child. Father Dennis McAuliff, O.P., says the waist band which she wears is the Aztec sign of pregnancy.
Thus it was the Virgin Mother's appearances to Juan Diego, her words: "I am the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God," the miraculous appearance of her Image on his tilma - and what the Indians read in this "picture-letter" - that converted more than 8,000,000 natives in seven years to the Catholic Faith.
Everything to be found on the Image taught them something of great importance. It portrays a beautiful young girl in regal attire, carried through space by an angel. She stands before the sun, surrounded by clouds. All this denotes that her present abode is not in this world.
Through her Image, she also taught them that she is no goddess. Her hands are folded in supplication, her posture indicating that she is interceding for them at the throne of the TRUE INVISIBLE GOD.
After studying her figure, the Indians were sure that she had at one time been an inhabitant on earth, a human being subject to death, and her appearance to Juan Diego proved to them the immortality of the human soul
The dignity and majesty of her figure, as it covers the sun, assured them that she is greater than the sun, and therefore the sun could not be a god to whom human sacrifices were due. Is it surprising that she, whose only Son was sacrificed on the Cross for the redemption of mankind, should want to dry the tears of the mothers, sisters, and friends of the sacrificed Indians by teaching them through her Image that such sacrifices were useless?
When they heard the story how Almighty God took a human form, being born of the Virgin Mary - that He was crucified, died, was buried, and rose again from the dead - they were astounded. He was the DIVINE VICTIM, THE SON OF GOD, Who had offered Himself to the Invisible God for the salvation of the human race. Convinced that the human sacrifices which they had been making were utterly unnecessary, the Indians embraced Christianity joyfully.
Today Our Lady of Guadalupe stands before a GODLESS WORLD - atheists, communists, and extreme liberalists proclaim there is no God. Mary said to Juan Diego, "I am the Mother of the TRUE GOD, Author of life, Creator of all, and Lord of the heavens and of the earth,Who is present everywhere."
On October 12, 1945, His Holiness Pope Pius XII proclaimed Mary, Virgin of Guadalupe, as Empress of all the Americas. On this glorious and memorable day at Rome, the Holy Father asked for world peace and unity - the very foundations of correct living. He added that to obtain this peace and unity one must have recourse to the Virgin Mary, to her who is the Voice of Faith and Hope of Christians.
In 1663, Pope Alexander VII granted in perpetuity the petition of the Bishops to hold the twelfth of December as the Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
On March 25, 1966 Pope Paul VI presented Guadalupe with the Golden Rose. The year before this he had presented the Golden Rose to the Sanctuary at Fatima, Portugal.
It is a great mistake simply to say that we are free to reject any or all private revelations, that we can take or leave them at our own pleasure. There are also Christian virutes connected with faith. Our lives must be guided by Christian prudence. When there is evidence that a particular private revelation comes from God we should give it the response a message from God warrants - or surely we are not prudent, reasonable men.
Among world experts on private revelation are Abbe
Richard, theologian editor of the French newspaper L'Homme Nouveau, and
Father Messias D. Coelho, Portuguese lecturer on Fatima.
Concerning Fatima, Lourdes, the Miraculous Medal and similar
private revelations Abbe Richard added a phrase which clarified the problem
immensely. He said these were in the category of "private revelations
with a public purpose". Private indeed in the sense that they do not belong
to public revelation; but surely in a category that is not private in the
ordinary sense of the word, for they gave a message for action not just
by the private individuals Catherine Laboure, Bernadette Soubirous or the
three children of Fatima, but for action by all the faithful. And
at Fatima the action was in effect extended to the believing world under
a dire threat: unless penance and prayer were done another war would follow,
and evil would spread from Russia.
Such a private revelation is no longer on a take-it-as-you-like basis; if the evidence for its validity is present it becomes a divine command for faith and action by all.