Will Our Lady of Guadalupe save Mexico from an epidemic?

I most certainly noticed the photograph in a daily of a devotee to Our Lady of Guadalupe wearing a blue mask to keep swine flu away. From Associated Press writers in London, Mexico City, Atlanta, Georgia and Malcolm Ritter in New York, this report arrived: “‘We are very, very concerned,’” World Health Organization spokesman Thomas Abraham said. ‘We have what appears to be a novel virus and it has spread from human to human…’”

Mexico’s Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordoba said 68 people died from swine flu and the new strain had been confirmed in 20 of those deaths. At least 1,004 people nationwide were sick from the flu.

While 13 of the 20 deaths were in Mexico City, the rest were spread across Mexico — four in central San Luis Potosi, two near the US border in Baja, California, and one in southern Oaxaca State.

The worrisome new virus combines genetic material from pigs, birds and humans in a way researchers have not seen before. Mexico faces a unique strain of swine flu as the suspected killer of dozens of people. Authorities closed schools, museums, libraries and theaters in the capital on Friday to try to contain an outbreak that has spurred concerns of a global flu pandemic.

The city of Mexico’s response brought to mind other major outbreaks, such as SARS in Asia. At its peak in 2003, SARS shut down Beijing schools, cinemas and restaurants, and thousands of people were quarantined at home. The closures were the first citywide shutdown of public gathering places since millions died in the devastating 1985 earthquake.

Plagues also besieged Mexico City, but first, what about the dazzling Virgin of this beguiling city and the masked devotee in the picture? There appears to be a plague in poor Mexico where the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe is located, a place I dream of visiting one day. Plagues are absolutely very scary, being infectious diseases caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis. A plague may be transmitted to humans through the bite of an infected flea; it can spread from person to person through contact or from cough’s droplets in air that is breathed by a non-infected person, and can be caught two to six days after contact!

In the 14th century, a plague beginning in China swept through the world. In the years 1347 to 1352, Europe’s population declined by 25 million people. Men, women and youths in perfect health at midday were dead by nightfall. The year 1349 was the most deadly year of the plague. In some areas, the survivors were so few that there were not enough living to bury the dead. Livestock also fell victim to the plague, including the prized sheep. It was recorded that in one field, 5,000 lay dead.

Everywhere, people were dying. Parents abandoned their children, priests sought to care for the dying. Charity was abandoned as parents refused to visit their children, and the children also refused to visit their parents for fear of contamination.

Most, however, believed that the plague was the result of God’s wrath upon them. The plague’s helpless victims did not know what was killing them and had no idea for a remedy. Sheep and cattle went wandering over fields. The English believed it had come to them from the avenging hand of God.

By 1350, most of the plague’s devastating effects were dissolved. The survivors believed that they had been spared by God’s grace. Religious fervor rose. Going back to Mexico, 10 years after the fall of the city, when arrows and shields were put aside and there was peace in the villages, faith began to shoot and blossom. In the year 1531, a few days after the beginning of December, there was a humble man of the people, Juan Diego, a native of Cauhtitlan, who worshipped at the chapel at Tlatilolco.

It was still dark when he set out on a Saturday. Dawn was breaking when he arrived at the foot of Tepeyac Hill. He heard singing from the crest of the hill, which sounded like the song of many birds. When at times their voices quieted, the hillside seemed to echo in response. Upon reaching the summit, he saw a lady standing there who told him to come closer. Her clothing was radiant like the sun. The crag on which her foot was resting was giving off rays of light and looked like a bracelet of precious stones. Even the earth glistened like the mist of a rainbow. The mesquite bushes, prickly pears and other lowly herbs and grasses that usually grow there seemed like emeralds, the foliage-like fine turquoise, and the branches and thorns like shining gold.

She said: “I am the perfect and ever Virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the God of truth. I want very much to have a little house built here for me, in which I will show Him, I will exalt Him and make Him manifest. I will give Him to the people in all my personal love, in my compassion, in my help, in my protection. I am truly your merciful Mother. Here I will hear their weeping, their complaints and heal all their sorrows, hardships and sufferings. Go to the residence of the Bishop of Mexico and tell him that I sent you to show him how strongly I wish him to build me a temple here on the plain.”

She eventually was described as Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Juan Diego then descended the hill. Once inside the city, he went without delay to the residence of the bishop, a new prelate, who had only recently arrived. His name was Friar Don Juan de Zumarraga, a religious of St. Francis. Apparently he did not believe Juan Diego. The bishop had him followed by members of the household whom he trusted so that they could watch and see where he went, whom he saw and spoke to. But they lost trace of him. They agreed that if he should ever come back, they would grab him and punish him severely so that he would never tell lies.

But the little Virgin firmly ordered Juan Diego to go to the bishop again.

Juan Diego went up the hill immediately. Upon reaching the crest he was astonished to find so many beautiful, exotic varieties of fine, full-bloomed flowers. Even if their presence was out of season, being the time of biting frost. He went around cutting and gathering them and placed them inside the fold of his tilma. He rushed back to the residence of the bishop.

He was again refused to see the bishop by his followers. But when they saw him standing there a long time, head lowered, and he seemed to be carrying something, they went to him and tried to see what it was.

He opened the folds of his tilma a bit to give them a peek. When they saw that it contained exquisite, different blooming flowers out of season, they were awed. They went right away to tell the bishop and he went to see Juan Diego.

 “Your Excellency, you were asking for proof so that you could believe me, so that you could build the sacred little house that she requested. She ordered me to see you again for the proof, so that I would be believed. She sent me up the hill where I had seen her before, to cut various roses and other flowers.”

He then opened his white mantle which held the flowers, and as the different precious flowers fell to the floor, then and there the beloved image of the Perfect Virgin, Holy Mary, Mother of God, suddenly appeared in the form and figure in which it remains to this day. It is preserved in her chapel at Tepeyac.

The bishop prayed in tears, begging forgiveness.

The above is the original account of Guadalupe by Antonio Valeriano. The original was in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, and was translated into Spanish, then English. The words of Our Lady are a literal translation from Spanish by Janet Barber who worked from the Spanish translation of the original Aztec language with the renowned Nahuatl scholar, Fr. Mario Rojas Sanchez.

In 1539, seven years after the Lady appeared, eight million Indians were converted as a direct result of her appearances and her sacred picture.

However, a plague attacked Mexico in 1544. It was cocollixti, or typhus, which killed 12,000 residents in Mexico City alone, but ceased after the Franciscans led children, six and seven years old, to the shrine to pray. In 1666, a chapel was built on Tepeyac, where Our Lady first appeared and where the flowers were found on the morning of December 12.

In 1736, cocollixti again struck and an estimated 40,000 people died in Mexico City. 

Other epidemics and plagues have struck. Why, we might ask? Perhaps to remind us that mankind can’t be master of all things and that God reigns.

In her masterpiece, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather, from the state of New Mexico, described her prelate’s visit to Tepeyac and his conclusion. “Where there is great love there are always miracles. The miracles of the Church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing powers coming suddenly near to us from afar, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear.”

Maybe Our Lady of Guadalupe means to hint to us that to be sound in mind and body and for her Son to feel loved, we just need to say a short prayer daily — “Lord have mercy” — to give her Son honor and to remind ourselves that we are His servants.