Day Twelve

On Tuesday, January 16th we heard from Pastor Kim about the “Liberating Role of Our Lady of Guadalupe” before heading out to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe to tour the Basilica and its grounds and have some time for meditation. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe has an interesting story. On 9 December 1531, Juan Diego (not his given name, but his Christian name) was traveling between Tlateloca and Tepeyac and heard music that led him to an encounter of an apparition of the Virgin Mary near the road. She told him that this spot should be a place of worship. She continued to speak to him over the course of the next 3 days and finally, on the 12th, she appeared in the middle of the road, told him that his uncle who had been sick would survive, and told him to climb a particular hill to pick some roses, which would have been out of season in December. When he did, he loaded them up in the front of his cape and took them to the church, dropping them at the bishop’s feet. To their great surprise, the image of the virgin was imprinted on Juan Diego’s cape!

There is, of course, much debate about the validity of this claim. Was it really an apparition? Was it a hoax by the church to convert the indigenous? There is a saying here of the “Mexico Profundo,” or the “Deeper Mexico” that lies at the root of Mexican history. In this case, the images in this story are quite symbolic of Mexico, including the use of music and flowers to bracket the story, because a word that indigenous people use for Truth is, literally, flower-music. The message about Juan Diego’s uncle is symbolic of the inheritance that passed from uncles to nephews in this part of the world. And, the image of Mary herself is one of dark skin, standing before the Sun, standing atop the moon, with stars on her cloak. These are all local images of native people. In other words, God speaks to them through their own people. To remember this, I bought a brown-thread rosary at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. By it, I’ll be reminded that messages from God are couched in our own experiences and our own realities. (By the way, one sees the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe by passing by it on a conveyor belt in the basilica!)

After time at the Basilica of OLG, we left for the Ancient City of Teotihuacán, about 30 miles northeast of the city, for a picnic lunch among the cactus and a tour of this ancient pyramid site. The most striking thing to me here was that it, unlike many other ancient temples and things in Mexico, was not built over by a Christian church. The reason is that it is pre-hispanic in origin . . . it was built about 1500 years ago. It was abandoned in the 7th century, though no one knows why, and was inhabited by various tribes including the Mexicas (me-SHEE-cas), after whom this country is named. It was discovered some 500 years after its most recent inhabitants died so there was no culture to conquer and it was left standing by the Spaniards.

We returned to the Lutheran Center for dinner and an introduction to “Solidarity Economics” with Sister Elba Flores Nuñez, a Missionary of the Immaculate Conception who works at the Centro de Estudios Ecumenicos. Sr. Elba talked about the goal of an economy in which we think about tomorrow and the needs of our descendents. In Solidarity Economics, every created thing has a right to exist. The principles of harmony, necessity, and relationship are key to the ways that a Solidarity Economic is laid out. In it, people things of the producers and the consequences of their purchasing power. For example, if someone, in desperation, is trying to sell something for much less than I know it is worth, the right thing to do is pay them what it’s worth . . . buy justly, sell justly. In Mercado Economics, I look for the lowest price to buy and the highest price to sell. Solidarity Economics is an effort to raise the consciousness of consumption, and it is (according to Sr. Elba) urgent, necessary, and possible.