miracles and devotion
of the Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe
It is true that miracles are often a response to our faith. But those great devotions to an image or apparition of the Virgin, to a saint, are always due to the miracles obtained through her intercession. Chronologically, a sanctuary is not the first place of numerous pilgrimages, for example, and that is why prodigious graces are received there, but the other way around, because special graces have been received there, the crowds come. The one who begins is always God: "He loves us first."
And if God begins to sanctify a place with such graces, this will ordinarily be proof of the authenticity of the apparition to be venerated, just as the miracles obtained by the intercession of a dead person in the odor of holiness are arguments for his beatification.
It seems little in keeping with a profound concept of God's paternal and knowing Providence: that he chose a historically apocryphal place (Tepeyac, El Pilar, Santiago de Compostela...) to turn it into a center of pilgrimages; which at least would originate in many the error of believing its authentic origin. As we say: If Christ had not wanted to confer the primacy on Peter, he would not have used such words. "Feed my sheep", etc., knowing that in fact many in good faith were going to interpret them in that sense).
The most extraordinary physical miracle of the Virgin of Guadalupe is the prodigious stamping and preservation of her image on an Indian tilma. But no less extraordinary and, in its order, superior, was the moral miracle of the conversion of the Mexican peoples: the greatest missionary success in history: in seven years five million Indians became Christians (others say eight million, but it seems the population was not so large) leaving polygamy, their idols and pagan practices, to freely embrace the religion of their conquerors. Historians say that there was a day when 15,000 were converted. And ten million a year is today the number of pilgrims who go to venerate it, being the second most visited religious place, after Rome, surpassing Fatima and Lourdes.
This flood of graces was made possible by the correct reaction of the Hierarchy. Fray Juan de Zumárraga, once convinced of the apparition of the Virgin (he did not simply believe her, but neither did he refuse to investigate and listen to the Indian, who they told him was a trickster), immediately took her to her private oratory. In two weeks a provisional hermitage was built, made of straw and adobe, in the place requested by the Blessed. Virgin: next to Texcoco (now desiccated) at the foot of Tepeyac, where she had last appeared to Juan Diego. And that same December, the 26th, a solemn procession, with the bishop and all the authorities, transferred the sacred image to its new sanctuary.
In 1532 the Bishop of Zumárraga had to travel to Spain. Meanwhile, the image was exposed on the main door of the cathedral. When he returned in 1534, he went out with Hernán Cortés to beg for alms to build the first temple of Guadalupe, next to which was the room where Juan Diego went to live, and is remembered today by an inscription from the 17th century.
Zumárraga's successor enlarged the hermitage in 1555. In 1609 the first stone of a new temple finished in 1622 was laid; of enough capacity, with two towers. In 1666 the chapel called Cerrito was built, on the hill where the Virgin first appeared. It still seemed little to them and in 1694 the image was transferred to the first hermitage called the Indians, to demolish the temple and make a better one, finished in 1709, and which with successive extensions still exists, but the image was transferred on October 12 from 1976 to the new basilica built in the same square with a capacity for 10,000 people.
The Supreme Pontiffs have been granting it a series of privileges, such as those of the Holy House of Loreto. The image was canonically crowned with all solemnity on October 12, 1895. Pius X on August 24, 1910 declared it Patron of all Latin America; and Pius XII on October 12, 1945 Patroness of all America. In 1752 they commissioned Fr. Juan Francisco López, SJ, who as procurator of the Jesuit province had to go to Rome, so that he could obtain from the Holy Congregation of Rites what everyone had wanted since 1663: his own office and mass; which was achieved by said father in 1754, establishing December 12 as the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Years later Benedict XIV, at the request of Ferdinand VI, extended the previous concession to all the kingdoms and domains of Spain.
The image is inside three frames, the first of gold, 13 cm wide, the second of the same width, of silver, and the outermost one of bronze, 35 cm. Above the gold frame is a copy of the gold crown, held up by angels; the original, with which it was crowned, is full of precious stones, was carved in Paris and is one of the most valuable jewels in the world.
From the testimonies that remain to us, from the beginning the devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico was enormous, and always growing. The same viceroys, before taking possession, used to spend the night there. Father Florencia, SJ, wrote in 1686 what has continued to happen since then: «There is no house in Mexico that does not have an image of Guadalupe with special decoration; You will not find a temple, with so many as there are, in which there is no image or altar dedicated to this Lady». In the 18th century, all the cities of the Viceroyalty of New Spain accepted her as Patron, with the approval of Benedict XIV on 25. V.1754.
Devotion to the Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe has spread throughout the world. Already in Lepanto (7.X. 1571) Andrea Doria carried a copy of her image; before her Saint Pius V, before the battle, added to the Hail Mary: «now and at the hour of our death. Amen". Cyril IX, Patriarch of Antioch, consecrated the Christian East to the Virgin of Guadalupe.
This devotion, born from the apparition of the Virgin and the conversion of the Indian people, was fueled, according to chroniclers, by the numerous miracles performed throughout its history. We exposed the miracle of the preservation of the image, even against the bombs, and the content of their eyes. We will narrate others, to praise her maternal care and our greatest trust in her. (We already say at the end of THE SCAPULAR OF CARMEN, and in other appearances of this collection, that, according to Sacred Scripture and tradition, his miracles must be narrated to the glory of God, who undoubtedly performs many more than what are published, sometimes with examinations as rigorous as those of Lourdes or those admitted for beatifications and canonizations).
Here are some of the many miracles that have been obtained by her powerful intercession since it is impossible for us to put them all in this article.
• WHEN they took her to Tepeyac for the first time, after her temple was finished, the first of all the miracles she has done took place. There was then a great procession, in which absolutely all the ecclesiastics there were and several of the Spaniards in whose power the city was carried, as well as the Mexican lords and nobles and other people from everywhere. She arranged herself and decorated everything very well on the road that leaves Mexico until she reaches the temple. Shortly after the Lady showed herself to Juan Diego and her precious image appeared very prodigiously, she performed many miracles. According to what is said, the little fountain was also opened then, which is behind the temple of the Lady of Heaven, towards the east; at the point where he went out to meet Juan Diego, when he turned the hill, so that the Lady of Heaven would not see him. The water that flows there, although it rises, because it bubbles, does not overflow for that reason, and it does not walk much but very little: it is very clean and fragrant, but not pleasant; it is somewhat acidic and appropriate to all the diseases of those who drink it willingly or bathe with it. That is why there are countless miracles that the Most Pure Lady of Heaven has done with her, our precious Mother Santa María de Guadalupe.
• A RESIDENT of this city of Mexico had severe pain in his head and ears, which seemed as if they were going to burst; nothing was doing him good and he could no longer suffer it. He ordered them to take him to the blessed house of the Immaculate Conception, our precious Mother of Guadalupe. After he came into her presence, he begged her with all his heart to favor him and heal him; and he made a vow that if he healed him he would make an offering of a head of silver. And he had just arrived when he was healed. Almost nine days he remained in the house of the Lady of Heaven; and he returned to his own happy; nothing hurt anymore.
• A YOUNG GIRL, called Catalina, was dropsical. Seeing that nothing was good for her; that she was very serious and that the doctors said that she would not get up, but that she would die, she begged that they take her to the temple of the Lady of Heaven, our precious Mother of Guadalupe. So complaining she was taken from her, she begged him with all her heart to give her health; Then they went to take it and two men took it out; she put all her effort into getting to where the source is; she confidently drank the water that flows there, and she was healed immediately. She seemed to get air everywhere, mostly from her mouth, as soon as she drank the water. She was already healthy, she did not hurt at all when she visited the temple of the Lady.
• A barefoot FRIAR from San Francisco, named Fray Pedro de Valderrama, had a very bad toe on one foot: nothing could remedy it if they did not cut it off, because he had a pestilential cancer. They hurriedly took him to the blessed house of the heavenly Lady of Guadalupe; and as he came into her presence, he untied the rag with which his toe was wrapped, which he showed to the Lady of Heaven, begging her with all his heart to heal him. Immediately he was healed, and at his foot he joyfully returned to Pachuca.
The voice of Miliza Korjus
Let's dwell a little more on one of the miracles attributed to the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico:
The famous Viennese singer Miliza Korjus, at the peak of her heyday, was going to lose, according to the diagnosis of the best specialists, half of her life: her voice. That voice that she had given him so many triumphs, and that she would only remain in the cinematographic tapes as "The Great Waltz."
The tour that began in Mexico in 1946 would be interrupted, as well as many other pending contracts. What to do in those circumstances? Humanly all was lost.
It was then that the tourist memory of the 15,000 pilgrims who passed through the Tepeyac Basilica every day began to take on new value in his agitated mind. She herself, a Protestant, had witnessed that spectacle during her visits, but admiring it only with tourist eyes, and as a typical reason for her. Now the Marian fervor of that motley town made her confidently invoke the Virgin of Guadalupe, asking her to heal her. The day set for the unavoidable operation arrived. Before practicing it, doctors routinely did the previous examination. Admiration was drawn on her faces. They looked again and astonishedly confirmed that it was true.
"But what have you done?"
—I took the medicines that were indicated to me to prepare myself for the operation.
-No no. What have you done to heal yourself?
—I asked the Virgin of Guadalupe to heal me.
"And have you tried your voice yet?"
—You forbade me to sing.
"Then see if you can sing."
The artist's voice resounded clean and harmonious. They carefully examined her and declared her completely healthy.
The next day one more pilgrim joined the river of people who were going to kneel at the feet of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Another white marble plaque appeared, days later, at the entrance to the sacristy of the Basilica. It only said: "Thank you, my goodness - Miliza Korjus."
On the eve of his return to Europe, he told a journalist: "I came as a Protestant and I return Catholic, because everything I have asked of the Virgin of Guadalupe has been granted to me."
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