by Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann
When I was the priest pro-life director for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, a local businessman made a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
The apparition of Our Lady in Guadalupe had precipitated the conversion of millions of Native Americans to convert to Catholicism and also brought an end to the polytheism, human sacrifice and polygamy that were prevalent in the Indigenous culture.
The man was convinced that Mary, under the title of Our Lady of Guadalupe, was the key to ending legalized abortion, the brutal human sacrifice of our time. The killing of millions of our own children by abortion is the fruit of a godless, secular culture.
At the time, the largest abortion clinic in St. Louis was Reproductive Health, located in a large office building in the central west end of St. Louis, not far from the cathedral basilica. This man rented space in the same office building and established the Juan Diego Shop, ostensibly to sell artifacts made in Mexico. In the rear of the Juan Diego Shop was a chapel where the owner invited priests to celebrate Mass, praying for an end to abortion in that building.
In less than a year, stories began to appear in the local secular newspaper that Reproductive Health was having both financial difficulties and was afflicted with poor staff morale. Reproductive Health was eventually purchased by Planned Parenthood and moved to a free-standing building.
Several years later, Planned Parenthood in St. Louis relocated to Illinois because of Missouri legislation that restricted and regulated abortion facilities. Sadly, with the recent passage of an amendment to the Missouri Constitution, legalized abortion is returning to Missouri.
This year on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I attended a lecture by Joseph and Monique Gonzalez, authors of the book “Guadalupe and the Flower World Prophecy.” The subtitle is: “How God Prepared the Americas for Conversion before the Lady Appeared.”
Joseph is an award-winning composer who has written musical scores for both movies and television. In the introduction for the book, Joseph described driving on I-5 in California in the early 1990s, when he began hearing a piece of music in his mind. He became so distracted that he was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol and received a speeding ticket. From this highway inspiration, Joseph composed a concert Mass entitled “Misa Azteca” that musically portrayed the worlds of the Spanish and the Indigenous Mesoamerican cultures coming together.
His research for writing this composition brought him into contact with “Cantares Mexicanos” (“Songs of the Aztecs”). The Franciscan missionaries had collected about 180 song/poems that were part of the Aztec culture before the arrival of the Spanish explorers. He discovered a song/poem that had remarkable parallels to the Guadalupe apparition. Joseph was disturbed by the existence of this song/poem that predated the Guadalupe event. He also became aware that many university professors in Mexico taught college students that Guadalupe was a fraud, an adaptation by the Franciscan missionaries of a prior legend as a means of converting the Indigenous people.
Joseph and his wife Monique began researching both the history of the Guadalupe appearance as well as the philosophy and song/poems of Mesoamerican culture. After weighing the available evidence, it became clear to Joseph and Monique that it was impossible for the Guadalupe event to have been fabricated. Instead, they became convinced that God had prepared the Mesoamerican people to embrace Christianity through the philosophical concepts and symbolism of their culture.
The Mesoamerican Indigenous people conceived of heaven as an incredibly beautiful place filled with iridescent flowers and colorful songbirds. Some of the song/poems depicted a noble hero attempting to find and enter the Flower World. In their poetry, the heroes were never able to make it to the Flower World. It was also part of their worldview that the Flower World Heaven was only accessible to royalty and nobility.
The Guadalupe apparition included both miraculously beautiful flowers and colorful songbirds. The beautiful royal lady, who is both a virgin and pregnant, leads Juan Diego to the treasured flowers.
Mary arranged the flowers in Juan Diego’s tilma, and it is her miraculous image that appeared on the tilma. Juan Diego, the hero, is not of nobility but a simple peasant. For the Mesoamericans, when they heard the song/poem describing the Guadalupe event featuring Juan Diego, a peasant hero who discovered the entrance to the Flower World, they are overjoyed because it revealed that heaven is open not only to the royals, but to the poor as well.
It was not the Franciscan missionaries who popularized Guadalupe, but the Indigenous people who recounted the miraculous apparition in song. The mass conversions of millions overwhelmed the missionaries. Millions came not only seeking baptism, but were also determined to change their lives. They renounced polytheism, human sacrifice and polygamy.
I encourage you to read “Guadalupe and the Flower World Prophecy.” It is meticulously researched. It reveals why Our Lady’s appearance at Guadalupe resulted in mass conversions. God had prepared the former pagan Mesoamericans to embrace Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe, who came as one of their own and carried in her womb the one God. The Guadalupe apparition is unique among all Marian appearances because it is the only one where Mary gave an image of herself.
Pope John Paul II declared Our Lady of Guadalupe as the patroness of the Americas and of the New Evangelization. He stated that it was in prayer before the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe that it became clear to him that he was called to be a missionary pope.
We need to seek Our Lady of Guadalupe’s intercession to end abortion (modern child sacrifice), to restore the dignity and importance of marriage as the foundation of the family, and to convert and bring back to her Son millions who have lost faith in the Gospel. Mary always leads us to Jesus, who alone can heal the epidemics of loneliness, anxiety and depression that are so prevalent in our secular culture.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!
St. Juan Diego, pray for us!
