Here's a wonderful description of this Goddess turned Madonna. In Mexico, and much of the United States wherever Hispanic people live, this story is well known. December 12 is her feast day. Her images are depicted with her standing on a crescent moon, with Juan Diego raising his hands in celebration of the miracle of roses that she gifted him to have her sacred temple rebuilt.
Catholics have carried forward the stories of goddesses by continuing them as Saints in their own rituals...as this one indicates.
The Story of Tonantzin-Guadalupe
** **by Licha Witcha** **
Each section is to be read before a decade of the rosary, for 15 decades in all*
1. In the history of the indigenous people of Mesoamerica, there is a Mother who is so great that life is impossible without her. She is the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. And while is she is known by many exalted names, she is also simply called Tonantzin, “Our Mother.” This is Tonantzin’s story—when she became known as Guadalupe.
2. The most powerful titles are reserved for her. She is: Mother of the Gods Mother of the Giver of Life Mother of the Lord of the Near and Far Mother of Heaven and Earth .
3. In 1521, Spanish conquistadores invaded the lands that are now known as Mexico. The Spanish invasion was brutal and decimated the indigenous population. Not only did the Spanish invade with the intention of taking control of natural resources and land, but they strove for complete cultural domination. Within decades innumerable plant and animals species disappeared into extinction. A hundred million would be left dead on the American continent. Outside of present-day Mexico City, the Spanish encountered the temple of Tonantzin on the sacred hill of Tepeyac. They demolished the temple, leaving only rubble. The soldiers killed the bodies of the people, the priests tried to kill their soul.
4. In December 1531, ten years after the Spanish invasion, a Mexica man named Cuauhtlatoatzin (whose name meant “Talking Eagle”) walked near the hillside where Tonantzin’s temple once stood. Through Christian baptism under Spanish rule, the man had been renamed Juan Diego. That day, on his morning walk, Cuauhtlatoatzin heard the voices of many birds singing from a nearby hilltop. The songs suddenly ended, and in the silence that followed a voice called out his name.
5. Juan climbed to the top of the hill and there met a beautiful young woman whose clothing shone with the radiance of the sun. She immediately put the young man at ease. Juan was so moved by the tenderness of the lady. He asked if she had a request of him. *
6.* The lady asked Cuauhtlatoatzin to travel to the Spanish Bishop and instruct him to rebuild her temple at Tepeyac, her sacred hillside. “*There I will listen to the cries and lamentations of your people, in order to cure all their various pains, miseries, and sorrows,” she said.*
7. Juan pointed out the futility of the request, but the lady sent him on his way. He made two attempts to convince the Bishop, but he was not believed. For a Mexica man to approach the Spanish Bishop with such a request would be an act of unimaginable courage.
8. On the third day, Juan’s uncle was gravely ill and dying. Juan was desperate to find a holy man to help his uncle. Concerned that he might be detained by the lady’s request again, he took a different route around her hillside. He tried to avoid her! Despite his efforts, the Lady intercepted him on his journey. After all, how could he ever be lost to her? Juan urgently explained that he could not fulfill her request and that he needed to tend to his dying uncle.
9. The lady assured Juan that she had already cured his uncle. She then calmed him with these words: *Am I not here, who am your Mother?* *Are you not under my shadow and protection?* *Am I not the fountain of life?* *Are you not in the folds of my mantle—in the crossing of my arms?* *Is there anything else you need?*
10.She asked him to make one last trip to the Bishop and gave him an armful of roses miraculously growing in the dead of a dry winter. She instructed him to deliver the roses to the Bishop and to ask the Bishop to build her temple. Juan filled his tilma—or outer robe—with the roses.
11.Juan went back to the Bishop the third time and waited all day to be seen. He was finally granted an audience. When he entered the chambers, he dropped the roses at the Bishop’s feet. As the roses fell to the ground, the Bishop dropped to his knees, as did all the other men in the Bishop’s company. There, on Juan Diego’s tilma, was the image of the Lady herself—just as she had looked when she was speaking to him.
12.In the twentieth century researchers were able to magnify the eyes of the Lady in the Tilma. Although their dimensions are microscopic, the iris and the pupils present the highly detailed images of 13 people. The same people are present in the left eye and the right, with different ratios, just as images are transmitted by human eyes. The reflection transmitted through the eyes of the Virgin of Guadalupe is thought to be the scene in which Juan Diego brought the flowers given him by Our Lady as a sign to Bishop Zumarraga, on December 9, 1531.
13.The Lady’s instructions were followed by the bishop. The temple was built for her on the hillside of Tepeyac. Later, a larger basilica was built near Tepeyac. Nearly 500 years later, the original tilma worn by Juan Diego with the Lady’s image, remains intact and on display at the basilica. Every year, the basilica is visited by over 20 million people. They are there to see the Lady. The shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage destination in the world.
14.The sash around Our Lady of Guadalupe’s waist indicates that she is with child – one of the rare depictions of the mother of God as pregnant. She appears pregnant reminding us that life will continue even at this moment when it seems unlikely, if not impossible. The genocide and ecocide that began with the European conquest of the Americas continues to this day and brought on the sixth extinction of life on this planet. But the mother will find a way to birth new life into the world.
15.The Catholic church gave the lady the name Guadalupe. They named her after a Black Madonna worshipped in Spain. The name stuck, yet the people of Mexico recognized her as their own. Regardless of name, she was their Great Mother. When Mexicans battled for their independence from Spain, they carried images of Tonantzin Guadalupe on their banners. The Mother of all Mothers had not disappeared. She was still the one whose roots extended deep into the land, living proof that she was alive and never abandons her children. She was not destroyed when the Spaniards flattened her temple. She had returned. She is here.
