Explaining the Faith - Our Lady of Guadalupe: Patroness of Life

my well greetings to all of you all of you beautiful sheep of our marian flock it is awesome to have you back with us for i think day thr session 33 of your seminary slash catechism informal training i'm father chris aylar and god bless all of you for joining us from around the world today it's exciting because we celebrate our lady of guadalupe her feast day and we've been celebrating since the immaculate conception but then we had three days of prayer and penance and so we're excited to bring her to you today and the importance as you saw on the cover slide of the life the patroness of life and so this is all part of our continuing series called explaining the faith which you can get on dvd you can order at 1-800-462-7426 or shopmercy.org or even streaming at thedivinemercy.org explaining the faith well god bless everybody we're in for a great day i think because the topic is so awesome but let's begin with a prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb jesus holy mary mother of god pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen and our lady of guadalupe pray for us okay so we start today with that famous passage from the book of revelation revelation 12 first verse a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of 12 stars she shows us heavenly glory and what is that 12 it's some say it's the patriarchs others say it's the 12 apostles but this is what we're going to talk about today and we're even going to get into the detail about the stars and and uh and whatnot people said well father she doesn't have a crown well actually the the um uh mantle that she's wearing over her head has the stars on it so she actually is wearing incense a crown very humble crown with the stars on the mantle being over her head so this is beautiful anyway we started to celebrate this last several days with december 9th when we celebrated juan diego but yet our lady of guadalupe is december the 12th now why the gap in between let's take a look okay this is saint juan diego's feast day december the 9th okay that's his feast day but the reason we celebrate our lady today on december the 12th is because there was four apparitions in between it started on the ninth that's when we celebrate juan diego that was the first apparition and then the last was on december the 12th so she had four apparitions now let's go to the next slide because i'm not even going to try to pronounce this but juan diego was a native mexican or we call a native american or at the time he was called an indian and at that time that was his christian name his real name as you could see i'm not going to try to pronounce it is there on your screen so juan diego was his baptized christian name and i always wondered that i was like well if he was native why did he have a spanish name it's because he was baptized seven years earlier by the franciscan missionaries okay and this was important because he and his wife i bet you didn't know this i didn't either for a long time his wife and him were actually two of the first is to be married in the new world him and his wife are one of the first couples ever to be married in the new world and that's because christianity came as you all know with the spanish con conquest of mexico now the missionaries starting with the franciscans taught these natives to kind of discourage their religious practices their pagan practices and we'll get into a minute a lot of people now in political correctness say oh that was a horrible thing but we're going to explain a different angle here now speaking of these pagan practices diego would have been familiar let's look at our next slide diego would have been familiar with these religious pagan practices that actually involved human sacrifice to sustain the aztec god aztec gods okay and maintain what they believe the harmony of the universe you see what's going on there there on your left hand screen is the aztec priest high priest and he's sacrificing a living being to this aztec god and this was going on but then after the spaniards arrived this sacrifice type of human sacrifice was prohibited and the temples they did it in were torn down and so the you know the missionaries came in and they did some great efforts but even despite all that um the activity in the new world didn't have a lot of success and so this is what was going on then juan diego comes along so you have this armies of spaniards you have all these missionaries they don't really succeed who succeeds this poor little peasant and on top of that his wife dies yet he grew stronger in his faith which was pleasing to the minister missionaries because they saw okay you know we're getting something done here but anyway every saturday and sunday he would get up early he'd get up at dawn he'd being juan diego and he would walk nine miles to the nearest doctrina which was the place he learned about religion and where he could go to mass because now he was converted to the christian faith now we're going to show you a quick video it's only about three and a half minutes long and i tell you what please if i'm not here for a split second when you come back don't go away i have to run to the bathroom because i was late getting here and the video is about three and a half minutes i think i can make it back but if i'm not here give me two seconds i will get back so let's watch this video that summarizes our lady of guadalupe [Music] in the 15th and 16th centuries the native people of mexico city suffered conquest first by the aztecs and then by the spanish conquistadors it was the custom of the aztecs to harvest the conquered people as victims for human sacrifice offered to the snake god quetzalcoatl by the aztec's own account this cost a quarter of a million human lives per year in the dedication of just one temple a celebration lasting four days they slaughtered more than 80 000 men and women now as you can imagine these native peoples lived a life of natural and supernatural terror yet the fear of their idols kept them trapped in idolatry and they resisted conversion to the christian faith the best efforts of brilliant missionaries proved basically ineffective then in 1531 the blessed virgin mary appeared in mexico city to a peasant man named juan diego he was an older man a simple man a convert to the catholic faith and he was hurrying on his way to mass when our lady appeared she asked him to go to the bishop and request that a church be built in her honor on that very spot at topayak the bishop was skeptical and asked juan diego to provide a sign that the vision was authentic when juan diego next saw our lady she filled his overcoat with roses even though it was winter and roses were out of season when the bishop took the roses from juan diego's rough garment the men saw that mary had miraculously left her image on the fabric juan diego's overcoat was made of cactus fiber so the relic shouldn't have lasted 50 years and let's be honest after five years it should have been falling apart but now it's lasted half a millennium and her image still looks with eyes of mercy upon hundreds of thousands of pilgrims what happened in the wake of juan diego's visitation well the bishop built that church at topayak of course and soon nine million native american people embraced the christian faith the entire continent converted to catholicism where the missionaries and the military had failed a poor man succeeded with the assistance of his blessed mother mary told juan diego am i not here i who have the honor to be your mother are you not in my shadow and under my protection are you not in the hollow of my mantle in the crossing of my arms do you need anything more do we need anything more the church is calling us to undertake a new evangelization and the task seems daunting in fact it seems downright impossible but are the obstacles today any greater than they were in 1531 for that man on the hillside of topayak juan diego was in his 50s he was considered an old man and he'd already outrun his life expectancy yet his evangelistic life was just beginning and look what he was able to accomplish look what god was able to accomplish through him look what his mother inspired him to do what do you suppose is god's plan for you and me oh okay i made it back i might be a little bit out of breath but let us continue that was a good friend of matt leonard who does a nice job he's from st paul institute that explaining that we're going to talk about the the story here in four apparitions let's begin with the first apparition and this one was on one of his saturday morning trips on as i said december the 9th 1531 and he arrived at topaic area the hill area and he heard a beautiful singing that seemed to be coming from the top of the hill now he described the singing as like a chorus of birds but more beautiful than any other birds that he had seen now let's talk about this let's go to our next slide this here is our lady of guadalupe now she acknowledged and he came to her or she came to him i guess you could say acknowledging that she was friendly he acknowledged her friendly greeting he then ascended up the hill and found himself with this woman adorned in clothing that he described that shone like the sun or shined like the sun okay now she explained to him that i'm the ever perfect holy mary now that's not conceited that's showing the immaculate conception even well before the dogma was declared who honors who has the honor to be the mother of the true god by whom we all live the creator of all people the lord of the near and the far the lord of heaven and earth and so she spoke very little of herself but referred to god by many titles importantly she when she spoke of herself she called herself mother and as i said ever perfect holy mary again meaning the immaculate conception and this was the beautiful aspect of what we were brought in our faith by her in the immaculate conception now she then gave these titles and identified her as as christ's mother and she showed her humanity of jesus because she was human but it also showed her the divinity of jesus because she was made immaculate to carry the god man the divine person so this is very very important now after introducing herself she revealed the reason that she came she wanted to have a church built bringing together those of faith under her as a mother and she wanted to take this message to the bishop and i'm going to use a re um thank you i'm going to use a microphone here or a speak what do you call it a microphone so that i can point the image out here in a minute but here's the thing she wanted this church to be built she wanted the message to be taken to the bishop in his he was a franciscan friar named juan de zumaraga and that was what the first apparition was then the second apparition he went to the bishop first but the bishop was skeptical and he was thinking why would our lady come to a converted mexican native why he was suspicious thinking you know there's a lot of this idolatry going on here this pagan worship why would she request that a church be built on topek hill which had been the location of one of those ancient pagan temples a goddess you know dedicated to a pagan goddess i think it was koat like you but anyway this bishop dismissed him saying that he would listen more patiently at a later time now kind of dejected juan diego went back and returned to tapia kill and then saw the virgin mary and told her what had happened and basically he pleaded with her to say hey can't you get anybody else isn't there anybody else you could get to do this mission and she said you know i could give this task to many servants but you are the one who's going to do it and her will was that he was the one that went to the bishop so very interesting now why did she use juan diego at all she could have went herself to the bishop and could have appeared to him but this is the point god always uses people you don't think remember moses i mean he stuttered and he said the same thing he says like god don't use me use my brother aaron and god's like no i'm using you but he stuttered so it doesn't matter what others think of us what god thinks of us is the key right so she basically praised god and basically using juan diego was kind of like living out her own pro proclamation of the lord has cast down the mighty from the thrones and has lifted up the lowly all right that was the second apparition now we get to the third apparition and this time before sending juan away he goes back to the bishop again but before sending him away he requested evidence that would confirm that what bon diego was saying was true so juan diego left promising that he would return with a sign from the virgin which really kind of impressed the bishop he was surprised by his confidence and so juan diego went back to topek hill and there was the virgin mary and he told her of what the bishop wanted a request for a sign so she asked him to return the next day does it sound like fatima and she would give a sign for him to take to the bishop now that's the third apparition let's go to the fourth apparition now juan's plans to return to see the virgin mary actually got changed because his uncle got really sick and uncles were very important parts of culture in this day and age so the following day instead of going back to to pay a kill to see mary he tried to get a doctor but he didn't have any luck so on december the 12th now the date of the final apparition juan diego wrapped himself in a tilma that's like an overcoat right to protect his body you know he didn't want to be cold and he went to find a priest this is what juan diego as uncle asked of him so as he approached to pay a kill he all of a sudden remember do you ever have this happen oh shoot you see somebody and you had forgot you were supposed to call them or you were supposed to go to their office and see them oh man then you're you're trying to think on your feet oh why did i do this i messed up sometimes wrongfully we make up excuses that are untrue right we don't want to do that but anyway he he saw her and he didn't want to get delayed anymore so let's look at our next slide this now is why we have our lady of guadalupe feast day on december the 12th this is what we're talking about right now so juan diego didn't want to delay his journey so he avoided going the normal way but she still found him right so when she went up to him he was like pleading with her listen please can we can we meet the next day i got to take care of my uncle you know here's the poor guy is is is really hurt now she listened to juan diego and when she finished speaking to him or excuse me when he finished speaking she spoke to him and i'm going to show you two slides of what mary said that many have said is the greatest words ever spoken by mary in an apparition the greatest words not prophetic of love let's read these listen this is our virgin mary talking put it into your heart my youngest son that what frightened you what afflicted you is nothing do not let it disturb your face your heart do not fear this sickness nor any other sickness nor any hurtful thing i am excuse me am i not here i who have the honor to be your mother are you not in my shadow and under my protection am i not the source of your joy are you not in the hollow of my mantle in the crossing of my arms do you need something more wow that's our blessed mother being there for us beautiful words that many always say were some of the beautiful most beautiful words mary spoke in an apparition now she basically revealed herself as both mother and queen in what we just read and then she assured juan that her his uncle would be cured now he would later learn that in fact mary actually appeared to her his uncle juan bernardino at the same time that she was appearing to him but anyway juan diego trusted her and asked for a sign that he could take back to the bishop remember the bishop was asking for a sign and so she instructed juan diego to go to the top of that hill again to pay a kill where she would find or excuse me she told him he would find a variety of flowers to bring back so that she could arrange them in his tilma he would carry them like in a basket now here's the thing there were no roses of that kind that she gave in this area especially during that time of year but he went up there and there they were so she said this would be proof and it would convince the bishop to build a church on that spot and so the the juan diego did what he was told and remember in native american culture flowers were very important flowers and songs and i'm going to get to both of those in a minute fascinating flowers and songs were symbols of the truth all right so let's look at our next slide so juan diego goes to the bishop and in front of the bishop he emptied his tilma and you could see on that painting there is the blessed mother not the painting of the tillman but on the the picture i'm showing you he unfolded it and the flowers fell to the to the floor and this revealed the sign that he the bishop was asking for it's funny because the tilma is very rough on one side and like silk on the other and so the rough service had the image of the blessed mother mary so basically everybody in the room was amazed they fell to the floor overwhelmed with the emotion and the bishop basically prayed for forgiveness that he didn't act earlier so anyway he untied the tilma from around juan diego's neck and he took it into his private chapel and he welcomed juan diego to stay with him for the day so this is all december 12th now the next day which is part of the tradition but not part of the apparitions other interesting things happen so now we're looking at december the 13th 1531. now people from all around nearby villages became aware of this story and started to help to build this chapel so our mother asked for it and the people delivered was that the field of dreams build it and they will come well it was the opposite they will come to build it because our lady asked for it so now natives here saw a real meaning in the tilma because atilma the type of tilma you had gave your social status you know it showed that you had protection and nourishment even signs of marriage but for them the virgin to place this on an image of herself on his tilma gave a new and elevated dignity to the common peasant and especially the native american it's amazing so before this diego was just an indian if you i'm just using their terms of the times just to convert just a layman nothing special kind of like saint faustina nobody's special right now he's welcomed now as having an important place in the church in its mission he then begged to be allowed after all of this to return to his uncle and when he did he found out his uncle was fine so mary kept her promise and he explained to his uncle everything that happened and his uncle already knew can you imagine this he's like oh yeah yeah i already know this i would be like you got to be kidding me so anyway this is the next slide this is mary this is what the uncle explained this woman the virgin came and he described her the same way as juan diego saw her and he healed juan bernardino so basically mary revealed a lot not just to juan diego but also to the uncle juan all right that so much was going to get ready to happen and one of the most important things surprisingly was she revealed not to juan diego but to juan bernardino the uncle her name and so this point forward she was to be known as the perfect virgin holy mary of guadalupe fascinating now guadalupe was written down by or was explained by juan diego and his uncle but some believe it could have been kuata lupe which means one who treads on snakes which was a nearby area or others have believed that it could have referred to guadalupe in spain where hernan cortes was from the spaniard who conquered the aztecs regardless of that it doesn't matter what matters is the virgin gave the name of perfect holy mary of guadalupe now people believe there was two reasons she did this first was to restore the uncle to his role as an elder heal him and to restore him as a thank you almost to juan diego and to be a witness that he saw what his nephew saw but also the second reason was placing her name into the minds of the natives so they would have a name to relate to her and thus giving them a means to seek her intercession and be spiritually healed so it's basically a renewal here a renewal not only of an individual but also the culture so anyway this is important it also shows the importance of lay people in the church most of you watching right now are probably lay people this is the perfect story for you to see the importance of how god uses laypeople very important all right so now what happens all right on december 26 this is only a few days the chapel was done i mean this is amazing it was completed in honor of mary and to house the tilma now the tilma was basically six and a half by three and a half feet let's take a look at it here it is housed because i said the purpose of the chapel was to house the tilma here's the present day view of that that's the present day housing of the tillman look at even in that picture how vivid it is that's not a painting that's the real one and so everyone came to honor this and everyone came and as as we said that's the picture of it today well anyway they came to honor the image and juan diego became now important he realized the natives did that they too could attain heaven if juan diego can get to heaven so can i and so within six years six million aztecs converted to christianity it was the biggest conversion ever and so now our next picture this is the modern day basilica built on the same place look at that incredible huh it's the most visited catholic site in the world some people say st peter still is depending on where you read but it's the third most visited sacred site in the world we're talking something huge here all right now let's get into the nitty-gritty let's get into the good aspect of this talk let's look at our next slide what is the symbolism of the image on juan diego's tilma this now is the picture you're seeing on your screen this is the image she left with juan diego and this is what we're going to talk about all right wow good stuff okay now the image on the tilma would have been definitely understood by the indigenous people because it introduced christianity in a way that they could understand a new hope through this jesus and mary all right now let's take a look at this all right now and i'm going to put my microphone on here so hopefully you can hear me all right i got a few notes but i want to explain what's going on here all right first the greenish blue color of the mantle if you can can you guys see me brother mark on my hand when i do this okay the blue and greenish color on the mantel all right would have been very important because this was a color that indicated to the natives someone important only an empress would wear this kind of color her hair if you can see it i'll try to point at it right here you can see in the image her hair is long now her hair being down is a style that only virgins wore the hair was only worn up for the married but the virgins wore their hair down now what's interesting is she's showing she's a virgin with her hair down but then if you look at where i'm pointing you see this black ribbon that looks like it's coming from her wrists it's actually not it's tied around her waist and this black ribbon around her waist indicated that she was pregnant now to them to the indians they got that it's a miracle because she's a virgin yet she's pregnant this is a miracle now the image surrounded by light she's got this light surrounding her and she's standing on a moon okay so she's standing on this moon with stars on her mantle and as i said in revelation 12 we talk about even the stars around her head people say well father she doesn't have a crown but actually these stars on the mantel on both sides are her crown and so this is what we talked about in revelation 12 a great sign appeared in the sky a woman clothed with the sun she's clothed with the sun i'm reading from scripture right now with the moon under her feet here's the moon under her feet see it looks like kind of the islamic moon right and on her head a crown of 12 stars now those stars on the mantle indicate that she came from heaven because it's celestial it's cosmic and so as the words that she described herself were queen and mother basically from heaven now let's look at our next slide if you take those stars on her mantle they have done some amazing scientific studies and they've shown that the stars on the mantle appear exactly as they would have been as constellations in the sky on december the 12th 1531. so just like on her tunic or her excuse me her mantle we would have seen those exact position of stars in the real sky on that date now there's other symbols here of divine victory over the pagan religion now she stands on the moon okay notice she's standing on the moon which the moon is in darkness the moon to the aztecs was the god of treks and that is something mary is standing on now also she stands before the rays of the sun now this is important because it proclaims here about something greater than the sun she is and she's not even god she's proclaiming the true god and she is greater than the sun god let's look at our next slide i'm not going to try to pronounce it but beating hearts to let's see and let's give this one a try whoa the eclipse was basically what mary brought to these people remember the eclipse was something that the natives were afraid of an eclipse of the sun was terrifying for them and so she's basically eclipsing the sun but not in a terrifying way in an educational way let's look at this now this sun god is being covered by mary and let's talk about the sun because the sun is very very important okay sun is very important now she's in front of that sun and as i just said she creates an eclipse now this eclipse is important because she's lit now if you stood in front of the sun and somebody looked at you you'd be black you'd be darkened if somebody stood between the sun and you and you're looking at them and the sun's behind them they wouldn't be lit up mary's lit up which means that the image has another light shining upon her and we're going to get to that in a minute but not the moon the moon is blackened since it's against the light of the sun now every eclipse was considered as i said a horrible event because the sun was being hidden it was being eaten okay now these children of the sun saw their father son s-u-n now children of the sun s-u-n saw their father-son being devoured being covered and this was the worst of all omens very important now when the sun and the moon eclipsed or when the moon eclipsed the sun the natives believed that the sun and the moon were fighting or arguing so they took it as a really bad sign a bad omen meaning they're not doing something right so what did they do the people made sacrifices this is where it gets very sad because they killed so many people hundreds of thousands and now let's continue to look at the image here let's go down to this bottom part the angel this angel has very much a symbolic meaning in all this at the virgin's feet right here is the moon and a strange angel it has the face of a child but really the boldness of somebody wise is how it was been described now the blessed mother is being supported by this angel which is good because to the natives the angel was a symbol of royalty now to the spaniards this angel was a little strange but for the natives it was totally understood interesting huh because it has the wings if brother mark can show it see these little looks like red white and blue things that you see at a parade they're not these are eagle wings see these right here on the edge if brother mark can get i'm sorry my shadow might be covering it but these angel this angel has wings of an eagle now why is that important because the eagle was the bird that could fly the highest and brought food to sustain the gods now what food the eagle carried in its claws the hearts and the blood of the victims that had been sacrificed all right this eagle that this angel has the eagle wings carried the body in the blood the hearts and the consecrated blood to feed the divinity now this has changed from what the aztecs saw in the bird eagle the animal eagle to an angel has now become the messenger not an eagle but he's taken the place of an eagle and so the child look shows that there's useful strength but the older look of wisdom shows that there's elderly wise being involved and so what happens here is you got a new messenger and this new messenger is now going to bring new food what does that mean the image remember where this image was held or kept it was in a temple originally all the goddesses and gods were images were in the temples but now we've put this image in the new temple the church mary has to be built on the hill now that is where the central sacrament the central food is kept the eucharist now what is the eucharist the body blood soul and divinity of jesus christ so now we have the true heart the body and the true blood not of a sacrificed aztec but of jesus christ himself representing life now being brought to the true god not the sun god this is what's going on in this image this new civilization is now not one in which the lives of the gods are going to be sustained by the sacrifice of human lives and the food that they give it but rather one in which all people are called to god who is christ the real living food and that will be given not the false so the image is expressing an enormous crucial truth i know all you are excited to hear about the miracles of the image but let's look at this meaning here that's the true miracle it is not you who are intended to feed the gods mary is saying with the blood and the hearts of the victims on some stone altar rather it is my son jesus christ who offers himself to you as food amazing now holy mary of guadalupe is thus the eucharistic woman that's what we have in the image now if brother mark can go back to the image you see on the outside of the sun around the perimeter see where my hand is going what is all this stuff oh it's just water stains father right it's just water stains no these are clouds and these are very important father why are the clouds important because for both spaniards and natives she is shown as a virgin among the clouds meaning she comes from heaven she was and is the presence of an invisible god made visible through her all right so the image of our lady guadalupe being among the clouds is very important it shows that she's something from heaven and is the bearer of many spiritual treasures from heaven the natives especially even the native high priests recognize this and you know what they said to the franciscan missionaries here's what the native priest high priest said we talking about the aztecs we are so low and unworthy of looking at the face of such a valuable person whom the lord has brought to be over us we do not know where you come from or where our lords dwell for you have come by the sea among the clouds and the fog sent by god among us his eyes his ears and mouth he who is invisible and spiritual in you becomes visible and the high priest was talking to the franciscans and their god represented here by the mother so all of this the aztecs became aware uh oh we're dealing with something from heaven here so that's why i look at our next slide in 1519 montezuma earlier now this is going back before our lady of guadalupe's apparitions had greeted cortez hernan cortes from spain and he believed that he was the god a god returning to repossess his throne and he was one from the fog and among the clouds so this is cortez meeting montezuma now that opened the door because they realize there's something in heaven or from heaven involved in this situation and what happened with just a few hundred men a few hundred soldiers they conquered the entire aztec empire tens of thousands now in some sense this was not good there was disease there was oppression and you'll hear about that but that should never be reasons why we cancel culture cancels this part of history and erases it because while that was not good and yeah there was some oppression but to those people who want to cancel all of our history realize what good did come out of it the ending of human sacrifice do we have any idea how many hundreds of thousands of lives that would have ended through human sacrifice were now saved this ended human sacrifice in the pagan rituals that had taken so many lives but the question was could the spanish culture coexist with the native culture well i think a great book if you get one is by a expert nade last name chavez and carl anderson the head of the knights of columbus an excellent book and they have a website and they go into the meaning here about could this work could the spanish get along with the mexicans so the first thing they did is they looked at the face let's go back now to the image now the face is dark it's a mestizo face which is a union of two great cultures the mexican and the spanish now today we view it as a unity of all races all cultures and lineages not just spanish and mexican but this is an important face look at the eyes you look at the eyes of our blessed mother they are cast down humility compassion and to the native americans a god would never do that so mary's showing that she's not god there's somebody greater than even her she's greater than the sun god but there's somebody greater than even her so to the natives a god looks straight ahead with wide open eyes now here the picture here then shows mary does not claim to be god but only his messenger and another reason we could say that is her hands are folded in prayer it shows that she's asking prayer supplication from somebody greater than her so let's look at these hands her hands are together it's a prayer posture that obviously was known to the spaniards okay however our lady is also praying in a way that the indians would recognize now this is interesting how if the indians didn't fold their hands to pray the spaniards dead so they got it but how did the natives look at this and get the fact of prayer you know the answer dance for them prayer was expressed not only by the hands but by the whole body even the emperor would join with the people and dance and sing to the gods now mary believe it or not is showing dancing here and people like father where do you see that it's not real clear in this image but her knee is bent in some of the images of our lady of guadalupe you can see the bent knee and where i'm pointing here is her knee is bent she's shown in a position of dancing prayer her knee is bent in movement and so the natives could expect could relate to this and the elders then shared this beautiful message of our lady guadalupe is it all began to make sense in her intercession to their descendants and they have the writings of one of them listen to this this is from an elder native to a younger our elders so now you're talking the elder of an elder offered hearts to god and sacrifice body so that there would be harmony in life this woman says that without tearing them out we should place our hearts in her hands so that she may present them to the one true god this amazing this is what's going on here this is incredible so this is why we are celebrating our lady guadalupe today the arrival of this sign of unity harmony a brand new life this is amazing and this is really powerful and people don't understand this is the deepest part of the image is not so much the miracles as it is the christian meaning of who this woman was now her clothing let's go back to that it has special significance okay now to trust her the natives needed to see that she was a good woman trustworthy you know how they saw that brother mark i don't know if you can zoom in but on other images uh you know what i have a slide of it hey that's great and you know what i did a mistake did i did i take a mistake here um where did i go 18 no i didn't okay no mistake yet okay so before i get there she needed to know that she was a good woman and i'm sorry messing you up here and i want to show you a close-up in a minute but she had a golden brooch under her neck and i thought i had a side of it i apologize i do not my mistake but she had a golden brooch under her neck and if you blow up any of the images of our lady of guadalupe you can see right under her neck is a golden brooch that represented sanctity to get the people to trust her now we said before about the bow that's around her waist the bow around her waist had several meanings to the indians now the first was it was called the flower of the sun nahui orlan the flower of the sun which was a symbol of fertility fecundity plenitude new life now the placement of this bow as i said a minute ago is important because it appears that the abdomen is swollen because it's high and it concludes that she is pregnant so this was amazing to the to the indians that she was completely sanctified but she's pregnant but this was okay because they understood the importance and even the spanish got to believe because their word for pregnant is enzinta which literally means adorned with a ribbon that's the meaning now it gets better in the image you can see where my finger is a bunch of flowers there's nine of them actually so here's one flower with blooms on the outside and the stems here's another flower with the blooms on the outside and the stems and i want to explain to you that the natives as i said before at a special reverence for flowers because it signified the continuation of life a flower is the most fragile thing i would kill every plant and every flower i ever had no matter how hard i tried i watered too much i watered not enough i did this wrong i got the wrong soil i planted it too deep too shallow no matter how it was i couldn't do it so when a flower stays alive it's a continuation of life and she has nine of these on her tunic now the tunic is the inner garment the mantle is the outer so the mantle is the blue garment the tunic is the white inner garment with the flowers golden flowers now on the flowers we see a small series of blooms that encircle it these are these little blooms on the outside of the main flower petal now this is important because to the natives the indigenous peoples they express truth as i said a minute ago and i said i get back to it in flower flowers and song so this image would have been perceived as having to be truthful why because you can trace the stem of the flower see this stem right here the stem of the flower its root goes all the way back to her mantle the blue mantle and the stars so this means that the beautiful flower represents truth of a celestial origin now we see truth here in the flowers but didn't i also say truth came in song yes this is amazing how can we see true through song on an image how all right a phd spaniard was a phd in music and he has done extensive work determining mathematically by this placement of the stars on the tilma excuse me uh yes on the tilma notes the stars and the flowers were mapped out mathematically and they actually made musical chords now as i said earlier in my homily today if you were just to randomly place a star on a piece of paper and a bunch of stars and then map it out mathematically you would see or hear if you tried to put it to music a bunch of racket you would hear a bunch of noise but instead when they took these stars and mapped them mathematically or musically they discovered something incredible this next video is only a couple minutes long but the first part shows you the mathematics and the second part they actually put it to a musical score playing the exact notes repetition that was found on the tilma absolutely incredible let's take a look at it the video is only a couple minutes long so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] is that not incredible that is what you would expect to hear from something heavenly this is amazing now we're going to continue on the image because there's more to go here now one of the most important parts of the image is what we call the four petal flower or the mexican jasmine and people understood that this woman in the image was not only a virgin but now the mother of the one true god how do we know that all right to understand how god's presence is shown here we go back to the gold flowers that i was pointing to you but there's one special flower on her tunic that you don't find anywhere else ever and this one special flower is found i'm going to show you a slide but right under her ribbon let's blow it up and have brother mark show you the next slide you see right below the ribbon where that circle is if you can look closely it's a four petaled flower this gold flower was over the virgin's womb and to the natives the most important floral glyph or drawing that they used as symbols was this four petal jasmine flower it had many meanings for instance the four directions of the universe north south east west and the gods that went with each of them had a different god so it's important that the design be explained here now this was very important they even built their temple around this now most importantly the design symbolized the natives highest god of all of all the gods there was one highest and there he is on your screen all right so and so this was their highest god now this image of mary speaks to the natives because it shows they have a desire for god although their understanding of their own deities was limited one title was interesting that they used for their gods or this highest god giver of life this is interesting it's kind of like saint paul remember in the arapagas hill where he spoke to the athenians and he said you know you're worshiping an unknown god whom you can detect but not quite understand this god is jesus christ and he explained that to the greeks mary's basically doing the same thing you got this god that you don't fully understand but i'm going to show them to you he's jesus christ now of course there are many differences between jesus and this high god this ome te oto the god of the aztecs there are some differences now we see that the jasmine is placed over her womb this little four-petaled flower is over her womb so this is different than the other god this is a god that is present that is loving and caring their god and i see this similar in things like islam was inaccessible transcendent uninterested in human affairs unless you messed up but this god being revealed is a loving present god so our lady of guadalupe becomes the model of evangelization this is important you always hear how do i evangelize by showing you want to follow a true god that is present to you reachable here he is coming as a little baby to our world he's present not this transcending god this above our reach and where is this god in the womb now this god then is her son but this is important because to them that jasmine four-petaled flower was a symbol of what they called a solar flower a god so to speak so this sun s-u-n this solar flower indicating a sun shun type of god is now replaced by s-o-n god this is the most important and central message of the tilma nobody knows that we always talk about the heartbeats when the stethoscope is hung on it or put on it that's been really not proven as true others have and we'll talk about them in a minute but this solar flower the only four-petaled flower this mexican jasmine is placed on mary's gown and on her womb meaning this underneath it is the only god the son of justice s-u-n so in some ways all of this combination of this image the moon the stars is meaning to the indians of importance because she is a virgin she has the ribbon she is a queen of the camos cosmos she has a crown of stars she's pregnant she has the ribbon yet she's about to give birth to the almighty son s-o-n but to them s-u-n and as the ad aztec said she radiates light all this is here this is why the message of guadalupe is about christ not mary jesus is the center right literally in the center of the image in this jasmine four-petaled solar flower now the sun now jesus is the center and he gives himself through his mother to us she's bringing him to us so although mary the mother of god is important she leads us to what is most important her son now there's been a lot of questions you know father the bishop never wrote about this and it was none of this was ever mentioned before the 17th century were added to the to the tilma folds were added the moon parts of it parts of the angel i even think i might be wrong here but part of a crown or a crown was removed but here's what's interesting the original artwork the image of our blessed mother the hands and the face and what not never flaked while all the other additions the gold leaf the silver plating parts of the moon showed serious signs of wear if not complete deterioration so the church in 1929 permitted scientific studies on the tilma now this is what's interesting the rough surface where the image was on the other side is like silk would have distorted any painting you can't paint on a rough image like that it had been distorted yet this one is perfectly clear when they put the icon i want to talk about some of the miracles now when they put the icon under a infrared light it showed the face the hands the robe and the mantle had been made in one step there were no sketches no corrections no visible brush strokes brush strokes it was unexplainable and the paint was not painted and the infrared studies also showed the color did not penetrate the fibers now it doesn't mean that it hovered above i think i said that in a past homily i was corrected it doesn't mean it hovered above but some say that the paint never penetrated the fibers other reports i've read said it went all the way through and it's on both sides so this one you have to take with faith but anyway here's the point it doesn't act like paint in addition it can't be painted because the color can't be duplicated the colors that we have when we print are not the exact colors on the tilma you've probably seen different versions of color and the biggest one to me is the tilma doesn't disintegrate it went the first 115 years with no protection at all no coat of varnish and anything that was made of cactus should have deteriorated within 30 to 50 years especially when exposed to pollution candle soot and all the other stuff but it's over 500 years or almost 500 years old it hasn't deteriorated this is amazing now let's look at one of the famous miracles the next slide please her eyes studies show that the reflected images on the eyes are authentic there were up to some say 13 other reports say 14 people in these images of her eyes and in it dr charles wallagh who's a nuclear physicist said something very interesting he said it appears and this is a man of faith to say this that mary must have been invisibly present when juan diego was presenting the roses to bishop zumaraga because the tilma like a photographic plate which captured her image and the reflection of the image of the other people in her eyes which they are as reflections of the people that were present when juan diego brought in the roses in the tilma now here's other something interesting the reflections on those eyes follow the curvature of a human cornea the way it would really be in the human eye and so it's very very authentic so there's miracle after miracle here another miracle was in 1795 they dumped incidentally dropped nitric acid all over the tunic or the tilma and it didn't affect it at all there was no damage now it didn't regrow or repair itself it just was never damaged then in 1921 you probably heard this a bomb was set off and this bomb reduced to rubble the whole marble altar below the tilma shattered the windows even twisted the bronze ultracross but the image in its glass covering if you can believe that were untouched amazing it survived smoke from fires candles water from floods and torrential downpours it's amazing now evil's tried many times but to no avail to destroy it so here we finish now let's get into the end part who is she our lady is empress of the americas and this is why in recent years the reference to patroness or empress of the americas has been included now not just mexico but the united states and canada and all the south american countries this is amazing let's look at our next slide i'm truly your merciful mother yours and all the people who live united in this land and she's uniting us and this is the point so we called her earlier the key to evangelization she's the star of evangelization as carl anderson said while she's associated with the mexican culture she is the model for evangelization because she includes all cultures he said she's not only transformed america into the christian hemisphere but she remains a model of enculturation and of dialogue between cultures healing and above all love amazing so ask for our lady of guadalupe's intercession an intercession for the church and the whole population of the americas especially for unity neighborly love and protection of life as is who she is pray the rosary and the chaplet for the success of new evangelization to overcome this culture of death she is the the patroness of life and i don't want to finish without mentioning that life john paul ii called her the empress of latin america and the protectress of unborn children this is why carl anderson we see here in the next slide we see these images all over the life march in washington d.c and carl anderson said i think her message of love and her apparition as a pregnant woman are things that have at their heart the call to build a culture of life all right so last couple pages now not only in her image but in her choice of choosing juan diego as a messenger she showed a love for every kind of person even the smallest and the most humble combined with her apparition as an expected mother with an unborn child her message is unmistakable life life you know i'm going to do a talk in the future on abortion and abortion is the one of the most difficult things to deal with in our society because our lord has given us so many revelations to say that life is so important yet there are so many poor people that are confused hurting mothers who go to the clinics because they're scared they're alone they may be even forced to go but i want to finish with an example of what our our lord does in response you know the chaplet of divine mercy was actually given for abortion this is surprising but i'm going to borrow from father seraphim's talk to the health care professionals to divine mercy just last month he did it originally marie romignano who heads up that wonderful group said he originally did it in washington and father kaz resurfaced that talk and he changed it rewrote it and did it last month and i'd like to steal from him because i think this is an incredible place to finish and i can take off my my microphone now but basically father sarah from said the devil hates god's mercy why because more than anything else it brought about the creation of man and man is the crown of creation made in god's own image and likeness sharing in his divine life now mercy gave us mary's immaculate conception by which god gave humanity a new start a new holy race arises but in his pride the devil can't stand the very inception of human life the fruit of merciful love and father seraphim says the hebrew word rahaman rahahaman is often translated in scripture as mercy now that's the plural form the singular form rahem is actually the singular for the word womb this is amazing and because christ is now resurrected and defeated death the devil can't harm him so instead he attacks those who identify with him case in point made in his image and likeness so the main way he does this is to get us to take our life or a life murder suicide euthanasia especially abortion this is what father seraphim taught us now he says we see this with countries and cities in past history and father seraphim pointed out egypt jericho and jerusalem listen to this in egypt we all know the story of the pharaoh ordering the killing of young boys threw them into the nile there is no estimate of how many young boys were lost but their blood began to call out to god for retribution and when god's judgment came over egypt one of the first things to feel god's wrath was the nile where these children were put to death the life source of all egypt god turned the waters of the river into blood and in the book of revelation 16 6 god declares for those who have shed the blood of the innocent and the righteous they will have blood to drink [Music] scary as for jericho why did god knock down and bring down the walls the answer father seraphim said is very interesting alarming actually he said when they found the ruins of the city and they were excavated archaeologists discovered a jar within the walls containing the bones of an infant that it was learned that the inhabitants of jericho were members of a religious cult that practiced ritual offerings of children to an idol god and after the child had been sacrificed its body was placed into the jar when it was sealed into the city's wall for good luck can you imagine god's judgment upon jericho had to include bringing down those walls because the innocent blood of children cried out from within the walls the entire city was then purged with fire what about jerusalem oh jerusalem jerusalem in ancient times there was a large idol that sat in the valley of hinam and it was called moloch it was half bull half man and an opening was cut into the belly so that fires could be kindled inside it and as part of the ritual cult parents would offer their children to moloch now this was called passing your children through the fire even though it was forbidden by moses they still did it so strange as it would seem father seraphim said the wisest of all men in the whole world solomon even he broke the command and allowed his children to be offered to moloch solomon 400 years later the babylonians surrounded the city and destroyed it including that wonder of the world solomon's temple he used fire to destroy the children moloch and so when god allowed judgment to come upon the city jerusalem itself was engulfed in flames and the temple was burned to the ground we may have seen this almost happen in modern day poland asking faustina diary 1276 she said at 8 o'clock i was seized with such violent pains that i had to go to bed at once this is saint faustina speaking i was convulsed with pain for three hours from eight o'clock in the evening until eleven important at times the pains caused me to lose consciousness jesus had me realized that in this way i took part in his agony in the garden and that he himself allowed those sufferings in order to offer reparation to god for the souls murdered in the wombs and i apologize this is jesus's words not mine wicked mothers now father kaz told me that the word wicked in polish is not translated properly in the same way we understand it it could be bad bad acts through confusion being forced it's just a bad act so saint faustina said that jesus told her it was in reparation for the souls murdered in these wombs no medicine she said can lessen these sufferings but i don't know whether i'll ever again suffer in this way i leave that to god what it pleases god to send i will accept with submission and love if only i could safe save even one soul for murder by means of these sufferings wow then connected with these episodes in the diary number 39 is this saint faustina said one day jesus told me that he would cause a chastisement to fall upon the most beautiful city in poland this chastisement would be that with which god had punished sodom and gomorrah i saw the great wrath of god and shuddered and a shudder pierced my heart i prayed in silence after a moment jesus said to me my child unite yourself closely to me during the sacrifice meaning mass and offer my blood and my wounds to my father in expiation for the sins of that city now he did not say what sins but we'll find out in a minute repeat this without interruption throughout the entire holy mass do this for seven days when i saw the kindness of jesus i began to beg his blessing immediately jesus said for your sake i bless the entire country that means each and every one of you if you intercede for your sake god could bless your nation can you think of anything more incredible he made a big sign of the cross over the country last page i know you guys have been hanging in there with me sorry this one's been rather long but with regard to this instance incident father sarah from said we get some clarification from her confessor blessed michael cepochko who gave sworn testimony during her beatification process and here's what he said she wrote in her diary that jesus himself said he was about to destroy one of the most beautiful cities of poland like sodom and gomorrah and account of the crimes committed there now having read these things in her diary i asked her what this prophecy meant what was the sin she answered confirming the things she wrote and responding on account of what sins god would inflict these punishments she replied especially quote on account of the massacre of infants not yet born as the most grievous crime of all wow but remember we don't condemn we pray for god's mercy the city of warsaw in poland it was later found out was the prominent center of providing abortions in eastern europe and guess what abortions were usually done between eight and pm when saint faustina had those pains so the chaplet was given for this what father here's where i want to finish saint faustina in september of 1935 wrote this in the evening when i was in my cell i saw an angel the executor of divine wrath from a cloud bolts of thunder and flashes of lightning were springing into his hands and from his hand they were going forth and only then were they striking the earth when i saw the sign of divine wrath which was about to strike the earth and in particular a certain place meaning warsaw i began to implore the angel to hold off for a few moments because i believe the world would do penance that's why we are here right now to do penance but my plea was a mere nothing in the face of the divine anger just then i saw the most holy trinity at that very moment i felt in my soul the power of jesus's grace and mercy which dwells in my soul and i became conscious of this grace and i was instantly snatched up before the throne of god i found myself pleading with god for the world with words that were given to me interiorly what were those words what did she pray to stop that angel she answers as i was praying in this manner i saw the angel's helplessness he could not carry out the just punishment which was rightly due for our sins never before had i prayed with such inner power as i did then the next morning when i entered chapel i heard these words interiorly every time you enter the chapel immediately recite the prayer which i just taught you yesterday the prayer that rendered the angel helpless those prayers were the words of the divine mercy chaplet incredible and in light of what saint faustina's confessor michael cepochko said it would seem that this prayer this divine mercy chaplet was revealed particularly to counteract the scourge and crime of abortion and the punishment that comes from it this is amazing and so i want to finish with a prayer let us pray together the prayer that was given to us in 2010 by the respect life liturgy guide from the usccb and the secretariat of pro-life activities in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen virgin of guadalupe patroness of unborn children we implore your intercession for every child at risk of abortion help expectant parents to become to be welcome to welcome from god the priceless gift of their child's life console parents who have lost that gift through abortion and lead them to forgiveness and healing through the divine mercy of your son teach us to cherish and to care for family and friends until god calls them home help us to never see others as burdens guide our public officials to defend each and every human life through just laws inspire us all to bring our faith into the public life to speak for those who have no voice we ask this in the name of your son jesus christ who is love and mercy itself amen god bless all of you i'm going to ask mark not to play any more video at the end so we can keep you short here to be able to go home god bless all of you for joining us and may we pray to our lady of guadalupe for healing of our land and the forgiveness of sins especially those against human life these words of saint faustina ring to the soul and may almighty god bless you the father and the son and the holy spirit amen you

Channel: Divine Mercy

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Keywords: Divine Mercy, Mercy, Jesus, Christ, Marian, priest, catholic teaching, spiritual, spirituality, grace, pray, prays, praying, chris alar, alar, fr. Chris, faustina, fr. alar, Mass, marian helpers, jesus, old testament, new testament, sacrifice, eucharist, holy communion, trinity, holy trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, OLG, Our Lady of Guadalupe, tilma, guadalupe, abortion, prolife, pro-life, pro life, juan diego

Id: 43s1GyGApOA

Length: 91min 33sec (5493 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 12 2020