The spiritual Queen of a secular nation

Simon Caldwell discovers the power of Mexican devotion to Our Lady in the city of Guadalupe
Like buying a rather cheesy fridge magnet when on holiday, it is a quirk of mine to seek out on pilgrimage something exceedingly tacky to add to a growing collection of kitsch religious items. So after becoming carelessly separated from the main tour group during a visit to the historic quarter of Mexico City, I naturally found myself killing a little time by scrutinising what the hawkers had to offer outside the Metropolitan Cathedral.
To my delight I discovered they were selling wooden rosary beads that were scented with roses. They had miniature glass beads in the centre of the crosses, which, when put to the eye revealed an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Best of all, her attire was not the blues and golds of traditional images, but the red, green and white of Mexico's flag. I had obviously hit on something big; this, I thought, was very tacky indeed — a bit like dressing up St George in a Union Jack.
Few Mexicans, however, would have been likely to agree with me: they take her status very seriously. Mexico is a land of contradictions; a secular republic with a spiritual queen; a country where more than 90 per cent of people are Catholic but which created dozens of martyrs during one of the 20th century's most savage persecutions of the Church. Few nations have such a distinctive divide between the temporal and spiritual spheres, yet in Mexico images of the Virgin abound: you see her everywhere, from carvings adorning houses to statues on street corners. To many Mexicans, "La Virgen de Guadalupe" is not only their spiritual mother but also the mother of their nation, a symbol of national identity and moral authority — she is the very Queen of Mexico, the Patron of the Americas.
Her love affair with the Medcan people goes back a long way. Besides halting human sacrifices and converting the Indian nation, Our Lady is also credited with stopping the flooding of Mexico City in 1629 and ending an epidemic in 1736. She was awarded the rank of general during the nation's struggle against their Spanish colonial overlords and after independence, in 1821, Mexico's Emperor Augustin de Iturbide gave thanks for her intercession by founding the Imperial Order of Guadalupe. Later dictator Porfirio Diaz had the Virgin crowned Queen, and the famous revolutionary, Emiliano Zapata (immortalised by Marlon Brand° in the film, Viva Zapata!), declared her his patron, as does nearly every Mexican engaged in the struggle for a just cause. She commands such respect that last year, when Vincente Fox became Mexico's new President, one of the first things he did was wisely visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe to pray to the Virgin. In doing so, he became just one of six million pilgrims who each year travel to the shrine for the precisely the same purpose.
Avisit to Guadalupe, the world's most visited Christian shrine outside of Rome, is not easily forgotten. Indeed. I was struck by how many members of the tour party had been there before, some a number of times. We arrived six days before the big event on December 12, and this gave us ample time to have a look around. Mexico City is dirty and the smells of the sewers are never far away, even in winter, but it is a vibrant place and lively music seems to resonate in almost every street. There is poverty but one can also detect a sense of optimism. It has something of a feeling of the
'80s about it; the hope. vigour and enthusiasm that comes from seeing and believing that things are getting better.
A brief wander reveals a city full of beautiful and ancient churches, mostly baroque and rococo in style, many of which were founded by Dominican. Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries. There is also an abundance of good restaurants and bars, parks, museums and art galleries and, yes, it's generally cheap. Short drives can also take you to the silver town of Taxco and to colonial Puebla, the "City of Angels" and home of the Convent of Santa Monica, which operated in secret during the socialist persecution and is now open to the public.
Slightly to the north of Mexico City are the pyramids of Teotihuacana, the "Place of the Gods", which are simply awesome, and to the south is Cholula, the site of the largest pyramid in the western hemisphere and the place where the Conquistador, Heman Cones, slaughtered some 3,000 Indi ins as he made his way up to meet the governing Aztecs and their king, Moctczuma, and to discover a civilisation at once sophisticated and barbaric, indulging in human sacrifice in the belief that their gods needed to feed on human hearts to survive.
Iid was with the arrival of Cortes that Mexico began to evelop into a modern nation. God might have had other plans for Mexico too. Cortes had conquered the Aztecs and had ruled Mexico for just 12 bloody years by the tirne Our Lady began to appear in 1531.
The Indians had resisted often brutal attempts to convert them to Christianity but in 1525, a year after the arrival of the first Franciscans, a young Indian and his fiancee were among the first to receive instruction and be baptised into the new faith, he taking the name Juan Diego and she, Maria. It was three years after the tragic death of his young wife that Juan Diego first saw Our Lady on the Tepeyac mountain, now part of Mexico City.
She spoke to him, saying: "Know for certain, least of my sons, that I am the perfect and perpetual Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God through whom everything lives, the Lord of all things newand far, the master of heaven and earth.
"It is my earnest wish that a temple be built here to my honour. Here I will demonstrate. I will exhibit. I will give all my love, my compassion, my help and my protection to the people.
"I am your merciful Mother, the merciful Mother of all of you who live united in this land, and of all mankind, of all those who love me, of those who cry to me, of those who seek me, of those who have confidence in me.
-Here I will hear their weeping, their sorrow, and will remedy and alleviate all their multiple sufferings, necessities and misfortunes."
Juan Diego told Bishop Juan de Zumarraga of the apparition and he was treated with suspicion and told to produce some proof. When Our Lady next appeared to him, she directed him to some roses which had mysteriously bloomed out of season, told him to gather them up his lama (cactus fibre shirt) and take them to the bishop. The image of Our Lady as an Indian girl was revealed when he opened the shirt in the bishop's presence and let the roses fall to the floor.
De Zumarraga believed instantly. He recognised the Virgin from the imagery contained in The Book of Revelation — pregnant, clothed with the sun and with the moon at her feet. The illiterate Aztecs understood the message too. They worshipped the sun and moon and here was the depiction of a woman who was more powerful than either of them., but who was not a god herself since she was looking down
rather than straight ahead. They were also aware that her rabbit fur cuffs denoted royalty and some, perhaps, could have been aware that the arrangement of stars in her mantle reflected the constellation in the Mexican sky in the December of 1531.
Miraculous healings accompanied the unfurling of the image, and within years an Indian nation of about 15 million people had been converted to Christianity. Ever since, their sons and daughters have visited Guadalupe each year to see and pray before Juan Diego's tilma, still intact and vivid after almost five centuries and today on display over the high altar in the main basilica. They do so with extraordinary piety, often approaching the basilica literally on their knees after walking for days from some of the remotest parts of Mexico.
The feast day is also an occasion of celebration in the form of traditional song, music and costume. The beating of drums on the piazza outside the basilica can be heard for miles as the Indians pay homage to Our Lady in the best way they know.
Masses arc celebrated back to back and the basilica becomes so crowded that it is impossible for any but a small proportion of the congregation to receive communion. There is a chance you may be stuck somewhere at the back, but it is impossible to imagine that you could perhaps come away without feeling that you have been part of something very special.
The next day, 1, along with most of the tour group, left the sun and flew back to wintry London, while others extended their holiday by going on to Acapulco or elsewhere. The rosary beads never made it to the collection of kitsch. By the end of the trip they had become far too precious for that.
In any case. I'm sure that one day I'll return to Guadalupe, so I could always get some more.
Simon Caldwell 's trip was sponsored by Special Pilgrimages, 55-57 Queens Road, Southendon-Sea, Essex SS 1 1LT. Tel: 01702 394000