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    Please don’t enter with balloons, the sign said as we walked into the Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe.  It was a strange juxtaposition to think of balloons and a church in the same thought.  But to be honest, the entire story of la Virgen is a bit on the fantastical side.

    The story goes that on December 9, 1531 an Aztec named Juan Diego, a nobleman who had recently converted to Catholicism, was walking in the hills

north of the city when a vision of the Virgin Mary appeared to him, dark skinned, as a Native American.  The Virgin told Diego to build a church on the spot where he was standing.

    Diego, understandably excited, rushed back to the local bishop and told him of the vision and the Virgin’s requirement.  The Bishop didn’t believe Diego and asked for proof of the miracle.

    Returning to the same spot, Juan Diego saw the Virgin again and related the requirements of the Bishop to her.  She then filled Diego’s outstretched cloak with roses.  Diego hurried back with the roses, a miraculous find for winter, and presented them to the Bishop.

   

Upon arriving, he dropped the cloak to show the flowers and he and the Bishop saw the image of the Virgin left behind on the cloak.  The Bishop immediately believed Diego’s story and ordered a chapel to be built on the very spot where the Virgin was seen.  And so goes the story of how the Lady of Guadalupe became the greatest religious symbol of the Americas.

    Since the Virgin appeared as a native person, dark-skinned, there’s a love for her from the populace that can’t be overstated.  We feel its affects even here.  Anytime you see a lady in a green robe painted on a tailgate of a pickup, or go to Walmart buy candles, you’ll know what all the hubub is about.  She is the representation of the common person of the Americas.

    It’s a great story to be sure.  But it doesn’t end there.  Interestingly enough, there’s no mention of Juan Diego anywhere in any writings, including from the Bishop he supposedly gave the roses.  One would think the days events in 1531 would warrant a word or two in one’s diary!  But none exist. 

    When looked upon from a political standpoint, the whole story is a stroke of genius by the church (and was there a better political machine than the Catholic Church in the early 1500’s?).  Think about it.  You’ve got a newly conquered

native peoples who are, understandably, reluctant to take up this new religion you’re offering.  What better way to endear it to them by making one its most important figures look like one of them?

    Whatever you choose to believe, the site on which the supposed events occurred are a great place to visit.  It’s still possible to see Juan Diego’s cloak and view the sacred image imprinted upon it. 

    The area where it all went down now has no less than four chapels, scattered about an area of several acres.  The story behind how those came to be is a book in itself.  But the short version is that the original Basilica became too small to h

ouse the pilgrims that came to see the sacred cloak.  So, in the mid-1970’s, church officials set about building a new place to house the relic.  What they got was......pure 1970’s.  Meredith described it best when she said it looks like a very very Catholic member of the Brady Bunch was told, “Go wild, Catholic style.”  Our guidebook described it as having all the aura of an airport terminal.  To be honest, it grows on you as you’re there.

    We entered as mass was coming to a close.  We walked around the perimeter and

watched as people would kneel and walk on their knees towards the front, where the cloak is on display.  Quite cleverly, it’s possible to walk behind the altar, down one level, and stand on moving sidewalks, looking up to observe the cloak from a very close distance.  This allows a constant stream of visitors to see it, without disturbing any service in progress.

    Once again, there are times when you know you’re standing in front of history.  This was one of those times.  If there is a face for Latin America, she is it.  We’ve grown up with that image, even though it wasn’t ours. So to see it in the flesh, so to speak, was, well, neat-o. 

  

After seeing the main attraction, we perused the grounds and visited several other chapels on the sacred hill.  The groundskeeping is splendid and very fitting.  Of course, “fitting” is always relative to the country you’re visiting.  As we walked up the beautiful stairways, leading to the top of the hill, in several places it was possible to have your picture taken in front of the Virgen, as a momento to show where you had visited. 

Fittingly, it was also possible to sit on a plastic horse and wear a sombrero, while Pope John Paul II looked on.

    It was nearing noon by this time and we had a plane to catch.  So we headed for the nearest Metro station.  It was a good way to end the trip.

    P.S.  Every time I write one of these, I try to end with something that we learned.  Of course this trip was extremely educational, historical, blah, blah, blah.  But I have to say that my biggest learning experience, and the feeling that still haunts me, can be summed up in one word, poverty.  Poverty on a scale I’ve never seen.  Poverty on a scale I had tried to convince myself didn’t really exist.  We’ve traveled in Mexico a bit, but nothing could’ve prepared us for what we saw in the City.  Rarely did we enter a Metro station without being confronted with beggars, in worse states than I thought were humanly possible, without being in a hospital.  Be very thankful for what you have.

Photos