Our Lady of Guadalupe and True Devotion

Happy, blessed feast day!

Today is the very special feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, to which my blog is dedicated to. We started celebrating last night (on the eve of the feast) as dh was going to be working the following afternoon and evening. On the eve, something exciting arrived in the mail, the dvd of the movie, Guadalupe made in 2006. (It is in Spanish but has English subtitles) Here is the trailer:

I get really emotional over many things...my father use to cry over beautiful scenes in movies and as children we would be watching him from the corner of our eye...but it was something beautiful to behold in a man. I'm a chip off the old block and so the incredible scene in this movie where Juan Diego unveils his tilma to the Bishop had me crying (same welling up I always have in the Hollywood version of Our Lady of Fatima, when the sun dances)

This movie incorporates the modern lives of people draw in different ways to Our Lady of Guadalupe, some draw up in coming to terms with a childhood mystery and tragedy, others who are looking at the scientific discoveries attached to the tilma's image, incorporating the reading of the Nican Mopohua (Wikipeda describes the Nican Mopohua in this way:)

"The Nican mopohua which has been described as "A Jewel of Nahuatl literature, whose beauty and depth of thought make it worthy of renown the world over" relies on the beauty of the dialogues between the Holy Virgin and Juan Diego to express the most tender feelings to be found in world literature. Her promise to grant the wishes of the locals who beseech her is prominent, as is her demand for a temple on the very spot. The Nican Mopohua section by Valeriano of Lasso de la Vega's account is related in a poetic style, typical of the most elegant formal classical Nahuatl in its full beauty. The other parts are clearly different and with greater Spanish influence. "

Throughout this modern story are flashbacks of the apprition itself, very enjoyable and moving. We all sat down to watch 'Guadalupe' eating our mexican wraps (which we had again tonight, only with kidney beans for the Friday)

On the feast day itself, we went into the city to the cathedral for Mass and then picked up the image your saw above at the beginning of the post. The children watched the CCC carton of Our Lady of Guadalupe and coloured in images of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Last year's posting for the feast, Under Her Miraculous Starry Mantle, had me recommending my ALL TIME FAVOURITE book Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Conquest of Darkness and I still do, but this year I have another lovely book to recommend, a new release called, Mother Teresa: In the Shadow of Our Lady in this book the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe features heavily.

I want to share with you a short exerpt from the book, tying together St Louis de Monfort's consecration and the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

"Consecration

This final step of consecration, or entrustment, involves the gift of self to Our Lady, entrusting all that one has and is into her hands. Entrustment to Our Lady has often been called the "secret of the saints," who recommended handling over to her in a solemn and formal way our gifts and talents, our tasks and responsibilities, and all the details of our daily life.

The story of Guadalupe offers a simple and symbolic representation of the dynamics of Marian consecration. After Juan Diego is told to ask the heavenly apparition for a miraculous sign, Our Lady sends him to the top of Tepeyac hill. She instructs him to collect the Castilian roses taht he will find miraculously growing there despite the winter season. Interestingly, Our Lady tells juan Diego to bring them to her, so that she may carefully arrange the roses in his mantle before he presents them to the bishop in Mexico City.

These roses, given by God and arranged by Our Lady, represent the gifts God has entrusted to each of us, beginning with the gift of life. Our Lady takes these gifts along with the details of our lives and arranges them, directing and caring for them in a way that we would be unable to do on our own. She invites us to allow her to dispose of our talents and the circumstances of every day. As with the roses of Juan Diego, she will prune them, remove their thorns, and arrange them as only she can. This is what allowed Mother Teresa to put herself entirely at Our Lady's disposal, every day.

Mother Teresa allowed Our Lady to prepare and arrange all within and around her, and she entrusted her entire future to her care. This is why, though she faced trials and problems of every kind, Mother Teresa never worried. All was left to Our Lady, the one who had said so tenderly to Juan Diego:

"Listen and keep in your heart, my littlest son: There is nothing for you to fear, let nothing afflict you. Let not your face or your heart be worried. Do not fear this sickness or any other illness. Let nothing worry or afflict you. Am I not here, I who am your mother? Are you not in my shadow, under my protection? Am I not the fountain of your joy? Are you not in the fold of my mantle, in my crossed arms? Is there anything else you need? Don't let anything afflict you or perturb you."

There is need for an interior discipline here. We need to give to Our Lady, repeatedly through the day and over the course of the years, our worries, doubts, pains, problems, and all self-reference. This is the key, the last step that will bring full relationship with her and allow her fully to intervene in our lives, to act on our behalf as she did for Mother Teresa, for Juan Diego, and for many other hidden ones whom history will never know. Without this commitment, without the gift of our willing permission, Mary is not free to act. But once we take even the first halting steps of consecration, Our Lady begins to enter our lives in a perceptible way. His goal is to fashion our soul after the pattern God first established in her own, to see us transformed into a living temple of the Lord, the Ark of the Covenant, that we might carry Christ to the world. This is who Our Lady was. This is who Mother Teresa was. This is who we can be, with her help."

pg 36-38 Mother Teresa: In the Shadow of Our Lady - Sharing Mother Teresa's Mystical Relationship with Mary. by Joseph Langford, MC

That is powerful. That is simply beautiful. What insight into the apparition in expressing the fullness of True Devotion, the Marian, total consecration.