The (Miraculous) Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe [Catholic Caucus]

Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared in Mexico as the pregnant Mother of God to Saint Juan Diego, a Chicemeca Indian, on December 9, 10 and 12, 1531. She left a Miraculous Image of her appearance on his cactus fiber cloak, or "tilma", which still exists today for all to see in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

Our Lady came to offer faith, hope and consolation to the oppressed natives of Mexico and to reconcile then with their Spanish rulers. She put an end to the bloody human sacrifice of the Aztecs and converted nine million natives in the next nine years!

After the conquest, the Spanish rule of the natives was so severe that a bloody revolt was imminent. Bishop Zumarraga prayed for Our Lady to intervene to prevent an uprising, to reconcile the Spanish and the natives and to bring peace. It is believed that he asked that he would receive roses native to his homeland of Castile Spain as a sign that his prayer would be answered.

On December 9, 1531, Our Lady appeared to Saint Juan Diego who was a recently converted Catholic. She asked him to go to the Bishop and request him to build a church for her on the barren hill of Tepeyac that is now part of Mexico City. Our Lady wanted to show her merciful love to all of her children. The prudent Bishop asked Juan to ask the Lady for a sign. Juan did so and Our Lady promised to give him the sign.

On December 12, Our Lady again appeared to Juan on Tepeyac Hill and told him to pick the Castilian roses which miraculously appeared there and bring them to the Bishop as a sign for him to believe her request. Juan gathered the roses into his tilma and brought them to the Bishop.

Juan opened the tilma to show them and, to everyone's astonishment, the Image of Our Lady appeared on it. The Bishop then built the church as Our Lady had requested and nine million natives were converted and baptized to the one, true faith within the next nine years. Human sacrifice ended in Mexico forever. Our Lady of Guadalupe, which means Crusher of the stone serpent, brought the light of the true faith, crushed the false gods of Mexico and established an era of peace.

The Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe as a Pictograph

The Image of Our Lady is actually an Aztec Pictograph which was read and understood
quickly by the Aztec Indians.

     1.    THE LADY STOOD IN FRONT OF
            THE SUN
            She was greater than the dreaded
            Huitzilopochtli, their sun-god of war.

     2.    HER FOOT RESTED ON THE
            CRESCENT MOON
            She had clearly crushed Quetzalcoatl,
            the feathered serpent moon-
            god.

3.         THE STARS STREWN ACROSS
            THE MANTLE
            She was greater than the stars of heaven which they worshipped.
            She was a virgin and the Queen of the heavens for Virgo rests over
            her womb and the northern crown upon her head. She appeared on
           December 12, 1531 and the stars that she wore are the constellations
           of the stars that appeared in the sky that day!

4. THE BLUE‑GREEN HUE OF HER MANTLE
She was a Queen because she wears the color of royalty.

5.         THE BLACK CROSS ON THE BROOCH AT HER NECK
            Her God was that of the Spanish Missionaries, Jesus Christ her son
            who died on the cross for all mankind.

7.         THE FOUR PETAL FLOWER OVER THE WOMB
            She was the Mother of God because the flower was a special symbol
            of life, movement and deity-the center of the universe.

8.         HER HANDS ARE JOINED IN PRAYER
            She was not God but clearly there was one greater than Her and she
            pointed her finger to the cross on her brooch.

9.         THE DESIGN ON HER ROSE COLORED GARMENT
            She is the Queen of the Earth because she is wearing a contour map
            of Mexico telling the Indians exactly where the apparition took place.

2.         The image shows no sign of deterioration after 450 years!
            The tilma or cloak of Saint Juan Diego on which the image of Our
            Lady has been imprinted, is a coarse fabric made from the threads of
            the maguey cactus. This fiber disintegrates within 20-60 years!

3. There is no under sketch, no sizing and no protective over-varnish on
the image.

5. The image seems to increase in size and change colors due to an
unknown property of the surface and substance of which it is made.

6.         According to Kodak of Mexico, the image is smooth and feels like
            a modern day photograph. (Produced 300 years before the invention
            of photography.)

7. The image has consistently defied exact reproduction, whether by
brush or camera.

8.         Several images can be seen reflected in the eyes of the Virgin. It is
            believed to be the images of Juan Diego, Bishop Juan de Zumarraga,
            Juan Gonzales, the interpreter and others.

9.         The distortion and place of the images are identical to what is
            produced in the normal eye which is impossible to obtain on a flat
            surface.

10.       The stars on Our Lady's Mantle coincide with the constellations in the
            sky on December 12, 1531. All who have scientifically examined the
            image of Our Lady over the centuries confess that its properties are
            absolutely unique and so inexplicable in human terms that the image
            can only be supernatural!

Similar to the Shroud of Turin, the tilma image also defies scientific explanation.

As I have stated before on Shroud threads, I follow the science. There is very little science associated with the Virgin of Guadalupe image. Unlike the Shroud, the Virgin of Guadalupe image has not undergone extensive, or even more than cursory, scientific examination.

Several Shroud researchers have examined the image of the Virgin.

"Norberto Rivera Carrera, Archbishop of Mexico, commissioned a 1999 study to test the tilma's age. Leoncio Garza-Valdés, a pediatrician and microbiologist who had previously worked with the Shroud of Turin, claimed, upon inspection of photographs of the image, to have found three distinct layers in the painting, at least one of which had initials painted on it. He also stated that the original painting showed striking similarities to the original Lady of Guadalupe found in Extremadura Spain, with the second painting showing another Virgin with indigenous features. [41] Garza-Valdés also claimed that the fabric on which the icon is painted is made of conventional hemp and linen, not agave fibers as is believed.[40] Gilberto Aguirre, a colleague of Garza-Valdés who took part in the 1999 study, examined the same photographs and stated that, while agreeing the painting had been extensively tampered with, he disagreed with Garza-Valdes' conclusions and claims the conditions for conducting the study were inadequate.

Garza-Valdés, is the Shroud "researcher" who claimed the 1988 Carbon testing of the Shroud was invalid because he found a "bio-plastic' coating on the shroud fibers left behind by generations of bacteria. This hypothesis was easily discredited. I don't give much weight to Garza-Valdés, findings, but if the base material is hemp and linen, as he claims, then the miraculous survival of the agave cloth image is no longer miraculous because hemp and linen can easily survive 500 years, unlike agave which decomposes fairly rapidly.

Another researcher of the image, art restoration expert José Sol Rosales (not, as far as I can determine, a Shroud researcher), who examined the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe under a stereomicroscope in 2002, says that he "identified calcium sulfate, pine soot, white, blue, and green "tierras" (soil), reds made from carmine and other pigments, as well as gold. Rosales said he found the work consistent with 16th century materials and methods."

"Richard Kuhn, who received the 1938 Nobel Chemistry prize, is said to have analyzed a sample of the fabric in 1936 and said the tint on the fabric was not from a known mineral, vegetable, or animal source."

I have stressed the word "said" in this report because no one can find any primary citation of research or reports written by Dr. Kuhn. All such citations are secondary and tertiary sources that merely claim the research and findings were done and reported by Dr. Kuhn, all quoting an article on the miraculous nature of the image that claimed the research was done by Dr. Kuhn—without attribution—in 1992, or other articles referring to the same 1992 unattributed source. This is not even good scholarship much less science.

This is the current state of "scientific" research on the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Most of the scientists who have examined the image have done som through the rose colored glasses of faith. Even some of the cursory examinations, even performed by scientists of Faith, have concluded that the image is a work of art. Others do not.

As I said, these scientific examinations are merely cursory. No samples have been taken, no credible chemical testing has been done, no electron microscopy, no spectrometry, or carbon dating has been done. To conclude that the image is not explicable by science is, at this point, premature because science really has not attempted to do so and no comprehensive scientific examination has been done.

It is possible that the image on the tilma was a real miraculous apparition, but I believe that if so, it has been "enhanced" over the years by pious artists who thought they could "improve" the image. Certainly, the symbolic images below the image's feet were probably added, as well as the gold enhanced aura around the image. What is almost miraculous is that the Shroud of Turin, given the examples of other enhanced and illuminated relics, and the tendencies of the time, survived without such artistic "improvements."

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