15 Fascinating Facts About the Virgin of Guadalupe
Dec 12, 2018 00:42:47 #
15 Fascinating Facts About the Virgin of Guadalupe
Andrew Chesnut
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/theglobalcatholicreview/2018/12/15-fascinating-facts-about-the-virgin-of-guadalupe/
Co-authored by Dr. Kate Kingsbury* and Dr. Andrew Chesnut
Mexicans will tell you that they are 90 percent Catholic but 100 percent Guadalupan.
While the numbers aren’t entirely accurate anymore, it is definitely the case that the Virgin of Guadalupe has been a constituent part of Mexican national identity, reflected in the fact that millions of both women and men are named Guadalupe, many going by the nickname “Lupe,” such as a colleague at the University of Houston, Dr. Guadalupe San Miguel, Professor of Mexican-American history.
As specialists in lived religion, we’ve always been fascinated by the most important advocation of the Virgin Mary both in terms of territorial coverage and number of devotees.
The Virgin purportedly appeared to an Aztec peasant, Juan Diego, for the first time on a hill called Tepeyac, in what is now Mexico City, on December 9, 1531, and told the Christian convert, in his native language of Nahautl, that she wanted a church built in her honor on the site of her apparition.
Juan Diego sought out the archbishop of Mexico City to share news of the miraculous apparition but was met with skepticism. The brown-skinned Virgin appeared to the Aztec peasant a second time in which Juan Diego recounted what she already knew, that he’d been rebuked by the archbishop.
Determined to have her church built and named Guadalupe, the Virgin instructed the middle-aged Aztec to try again with the top prelate in Mexico.
The dubious bishop asked for a sign of the Marian apparition at Tepeyac.
During her third apparition, Guadalupe told Juan Diego to gather some Spanish roses that had miraculously bloomed in his “tilma,” or cactus-fiber cloak.
The determined convert returned to the bishop and unfurled his tilma revealing not only the unseasonable roses but a miraculous image of the Virgin imprinted on the cloak, which can be seen today at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
La Virgen Morena (the Brown Virgin) is not only patroness of Mexico but also Empress of the Americas, from Chile to Canada.
While other manifestations of Mary claim at most a region or country, Guadalupe is the only one to reign over two continents.
And if that’s not enough, for a brief period in the mid-twentieth century she was also declared patroness of the Philippines, home to the world’s third largest Catholic population.
Having conducted research on the Mestiza Maria for a future book project, we thought that on the eve of her feast day, December 12, we’d share 15 fascinating facts about the Virgin who led Mexicans to independence from Spain.
1. Many Mexicans aren’t aware that the original Guadalupe is from Extremadura, Spain. In fact, Christopher Columbus was a devotee and even named the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe in her honor, after she purportedly saved his fleet from a storm at sea. The Spanish Guadalupe is one of several European Black Madonnas, so in her Mexican incarnation she actually became lighter complected as the Virgen Morena.
2. Prior to Guadalupe’s alleged appearance to the indigenous peasant, Saint Juan Diego, in 1531, Aztec goddess Tonantzin had been worshiped for decades at the very same site, Tepeyac, which is now home to the Basilica in Mexico City. Tonantzin means “Our Mother” in the Aztec language of Nahautl, so some skeptics contend that the Spanish colonial Church concocted the story of Guadalupe appearing to Juan Diego as a way to convert his fellow Aztecs and other indigenous groups to Christianity.
3. Despite his controversial canonization in 2002, there is no hard historical evidence that Saint Juan Diego ever really existed. In fact at the time of the contentious canonization process the abbot of the Basilica, Guillermo Schulenberg, resigned in 1996 claiming that Juan Diego had never existed and “is only a symbol.” The Aztec peasant was canonized, nonetheless, as part of a Vatican strategy to retain indigenous Catholics in Mexico and across Latin America who have been defecting in droves to Protestantism, especially Pentecostalism.
4. Art historians studying depictions of the Matroness of Mexico over the centuries have discovered that over time her skin color has become progressively darker, going from a lighter to a darker shade of brown. Studies on her historical development, such as Our Lady of Guadalupe by historian Stafford Poole, demonstrate that contrary to legend, it was Mexican creoles (people of Spanish descent born in Mexico), and not indigenous converts, who were the first devotees of Guadalupe and the primary propagators of her cult. Artistic renditions of Guadalupe became noticeably darker complected on the heels of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20), which led to the exaltation of the mixed-race mestizo as the new model of Mexicanness.
5. While devotion to her grew during the Spanish colonial era, it was independence from Spain, declared in 1810, that really transformed her into the national matroness that she is today. Independence leader Father Miguel Hidalgo launched the campaign for independence with the battle cry “Death to the Spaniards and long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!” The image of the Mexican Virgin emblazoned on flags, banners and peasant sombreros became the insignia of the armed rebellion against Spanish rule. Spanish troops, on the other hand, were led by the Virgin of Remedies, who was the preeminent advocation of Mary in Mexico until eclipsed by Guadalupe.
6. Besides her darkening complexion, La Morena remained relatively unchanged in artistic renditions until as recently as the 1980s. And the first artists to experiment with novel depictions of the Empress of the Americas were Mexican-Americans who didn’t feel as culturally and religiously constrained as their Mexican counterparts in exploring new ways of representing her utilizing all kinds of media. A bare-breasted Guadalupe created by artist Paz Winshtein was the object of considerable controversy when it was exhibited at a gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2014.
7. The etymology of her name is also the subject of considerable debate. Some linguists and historians point to Nahuatl origins while others, more convincingly, remind us that the name Guadalupe already existed in Spain, and thus we should look there for its etymological genesis. There is little doubt that the prefix “Guada” derives from the Arabic “wadi” or river valley. The jury, however, remains out on “lupe,” which many assert comes from the Spanish “lobo” (lupus in Latin) or wolf.
8. Guadalupe was an integral part of the world’s first great popular rebellion of the twentieth century, the Mexican Revolution (1910-20). Fighting under the slogan “land and liberty,” revolutionary peasant leader Emiliano Zapata and his fighters carried the Mestiza Mary on banners into battle against Mexican oligarchs. Some Zapatista guerrillas carried on the tradition during their uprising in 1994 in the southern state of Chiapas.
9. In 1929 the official photographer of the old Basilica claimed to have discovered the image of a bearded man in the right eye of the original image of Guadalupe. Two decades later another “expert” not only confirmed the presence of the original bearded man but also claimed to see it in both her eyes. Since then, the “secret of her eyes” has expanded to include images of an entire family supposedly visible in both of her pupils. For believers, the images are reflections of what Guadalupe saw when she appeared almost five centuries ago to Saint Juan Diego.
10. The original image of the Virgin is said to be indestructible. Firstly the agave fibre which the image is imprinted upon has not deteriorated with time, unlike other cloths similar to the tilma. Most paintings on such materials last no more than ten years as the threads begin to break and deteriorate. Furthermore, the infrared and ultraviolet radiation from the tens of thousands of candles appears to have had no effect on the durability of the tilma.
Secondly, the Mexican Madonna has survived an acrid acid spill as well as a bomb blast. In 1785, a worker cleaning the glass where the Virgin was encased, fecklessly spilled 50% nitric acid solvent onto the image which should have been instantly destroyed. However, it is stated that over the ensuing 30 days the image miraculously self-restored. Guadalupe also survived a bomb blast in 1921. An anti-clerical activist detonated a bomb inside the Basilica consisting of 29 sticks of dynamite. These exploded immediately in front of the image of Guadalupe. The blast annihilated everything from the marble altar rail to the floor below the depiction. Windows 150 meters away were shattered. Yet the image itself remained intact and unscathed.
11. In continuity with her robust presence in the Mexican body politic, the ruling political party is named for Guadalupe. In 2012 current Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (aka AMLO), founded the National Regeneration Movement, a political party on the populist left whose Spanish acronym, MORENA, recalls the Virgen Morena (the Brown Virgin).
12. To the dismay of the Church in Mexico, the image of Guadalupe has been fused with that of her religious rival, folk saint Santa Muerte. The hybrid image, known as GuadaMuerte, integrates elements of the two most popular female figures on the Mexican religious landscape and has also been rebuked by a number of Santa Muerte devotional leaders who are not keen on provoking the Church in a country that is still 81 percent Catholic.
13. The Virgin is garbed in a sapphire blue tilma depicting the night sky. What is intriguing about the stars upon her cloak is that these have polysemic, syncretic meanings whilst also reflecting astrological information. Not only do the astral bodies portray her heavenly origins according to Christian theology, but they also evoke elements at the fulcrum of Aztec cosmogony. The Aztecs observed celestial bodies, tracking the movements of the sun,moon, and stars. Their religious beliefs were intimately intertwined with stellar motions. According to research completed in the eighties by Fr. Mario Rojas Sánchez and Dr. Juan Homero Hernández Illescas of Mexico, the stars on Guadalupe’s mantle correspond exactly with the position of the stars in the winter solstice on the morning of December 12, 1531, when Juan Diego is said to have had his final vision of the Virgin. For the Aztec, direct knowledge of the stars’ position would have been essential as a way of recording time.
14. Clothing and adornment in indigenous societies across the Americas have long been used to communicate social status and information about the wearer. Thus, the garments worn by the Mexican Madonna convey specific messages using indigenous symbols which would have indicated to Aztec peoples her origins and physical condition. The black ribbon worn by the Marian advocation and her loose hair are the most important of these. A black ribbon tied just above the waist was the way in which indigenous noblewomen communicated that they were pregnant. However, loose hair signified they were virgins. In the image of La Morena, the unusual combination of black ribbon and loose locks is used to signify that Guadalupe is not only the noblest of all women due to her heavenly origins but also as she affirmed to Juan Diego when they met atop the mountain, that she is the ‘Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God.’
15. Many have interpreted the Virgin’s hands as a call for unity. Symbolically la Morena’s hands joined together in prayer are said not only to confirm her request that the Bishop construct a chapel for people to pray in on Tepeyac Hill where she appeared, but are also believed to indicate her desire for indigenous and Spanish cultures to mesh, bonding to birth a new race. This assertion is made on the basis that her right hand is said to be lighter and resting upon a fuller, darker hand, indicating the Spanish presence melding with that of the indigenous peoples.
Andrew Chesnut
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/theglobalcatholicreview/2018/12/15-fascinating-facts-about-the-virgin-of-guadalupe/
Co-authored by Dr. Kate Kingsbury* and Dr. Andrew Chesnut
Mexicans will tell you that they are 90 percent Catholic but 100 percent Guadalupan.
While the numbers aren’t entirely accurate anymore, it is definitely the case that the Virgin of Guadalupe has been a constituent part of Mexican national identity, reflected in the fact that millions of both women and men are named Guadalupe, many going by the nickname “Lupe,” such as a colleague at the University of Houston, Dr. Guadalupe San Miguel, Professor of Mexican-American history.
As specialists in lived religion, we’ve always been fascinated by the most important advocation of the Virgin Mary both in terms of territorial coverage and number of devotees.
The Virgin purportedly appeared to an Aztec peasant, Juan Diego, for the first time on a hill called Tepeyac, in what is now Mexico City, on December 9, 1531, and told the Christian convert, in his native language of Nahautl, that she wanted a church built in her honor on the site of her apparition.
Juan Diego sought out the archbishop of Mexico City to share news of the miraculous apparition but was met with skepticism. The brown-skinned Virgin appeared to the Aztec peasant a second time in which Juan Diego recounted what she already knew, that he’d been rebuked by the archbishop.
Determined to have her church built and named Guadalupe, the Virgin instructed the middle-aged Aztec to try again with the top prelate in Mexico.
The dubious bishop asked for a sign of the Marian apparition at Tepeyac.
During her third apparition, Guadalupe told Juan Diego to gather some Spanish roses that had miraculously bloomed in his “tilma,” or cactus-fiber cloak.
The determined convert returned to the bishop and unfurled his tilma revealing not only the unseasonable roses but a miraculous image of the Virgin imprinted on the cloak, which can be seen today at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
La Virgen Morena (the Brown Virgin) is not only patroness of Mexico but also Empress of the Americas, from Chile to Canada.
While other manifestations of Mary claim at most a region or country, Guadalupe is the only one to reign over two continents.
And if that’s not enough, for a brief period in the mid-twentieth century she was also declared patroness of the Philippines, home to the world’s third largest Catholic population.
Having conducted research on the Mestiza Maria for a future book project, we thought that on the eve of her feast day, December 12, we’d share 15 fascinating facts about the Virgin who led Mexicans to independence from Spain.
1. Many Mexicans aren’t aware that the original Guadalupe is from Extremadura, Spain. In fact, Christopher Columbus was a devotee and even named the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe in her honor, after she purportedly saved his fleet from a storm at sea. The Spanish Guadalupe is one of several European Black Madonnas, so in her Mexican incarnation she actually became lighter complected as the Virgen Morena.
2. Prior to Guadalupe’s alleged appearance to the indigenous peasant, Saint Juan Diego, in 1531, Aztec goddess Tonantzin had been worshiped for decades at the very same site, Tepeyac, which is now home to the Basilica in Mexico City. Tonantzin means “Our Mother” in the Aztec language of Nahautl, so some skeptics contend that the Spanish colonial Church concocted the story of Guadalupe appearing to Juan Diego as a way to convert his fellow Aztecs and other indigenous groups to Christianity.
3. Despite his controversial canonization in 2002, there is no hard historical evidence that Saint Juan Diego ever really existed. In fact at the time of the contentious canonization process the abbot of the Basilica, Guillermo Schulenberg, resigned in 1996 claiming that Juan Diego had never existed and “is only a symbol.” The Aztec peasant was canonized, nonetheless, as part of a Vatican strategy to retain indigenous Catholics in Mexico and across Latin America who have been defecting in droves to Protestantism, especially Pentecostalism.
4. Art historians studying depictions of the Matroness of Mexico over the centuries have discovered that over time her skin color has become progressively darker, going from a lighter to a darker shade of brown. Studies on her historical development, such as Our Lady of Guadalupe by historian Stafford Poole, demonstrate that contrary to legend, it was Mexican creoles (people of Spanish descent born in Mexico), and not indigenous converts, who were the first devotees of Guadalupe and the primary propagators of her cult. Artistic renditions of Guadalupe became noticeably darker complected on the heels of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20), which led to the exaltation of the mixed-race mestizo as the new model of Mexicanness.
5. While devotion to her grew during the Spanish colonial era, it was independence from Spain, declared in 1810, that really transformed her into the national matroness that she is today. Independence leader Father Miguel Hidalgo launched the campaign for independence with the battle cry “Death to the Spaniards and long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!” The image of the Mexican Virgin emblazoned on flags, banners and peasant sombreros became the insignia of the armed rebellion against Spanish rule. Spanish troops, on the other hand, were led by the Virgin of Remedies, who was the preeminent advocation of Mary in Mexico until eclipsed by Guadalupe.
6. Besides her darkening complexion, La Morena remained relatively unchanged in artistic renditions until as recently as the 1980s. And the first artists to experiment with novel depictions of the Empress of the Americas were Mexican-Americans who didn’t feel as culturally and religiously constrained as their Mexican counterparts in exploring new ways of representing her utilizing all kinds of media. A bare-breasted Guadalupe created by artist Paz Winshtein was the object of considerable controversy when it was exhibited at a gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2014.
7. The etymology of her name is also the subject of considerable debate. Some linguists and historians point to Nahuatl origins while others, more convincingly, remind us that the name Guadalupe already existed in Spain, and thus we should look there for its etymological genesis. There is little doubt that the prefix “Guada” derives from the Arabic “wadi” or river valley. The jury, however, remains out on “lupe,” which many assert comes from the Spanish “lobo” (lupus in Latin) or wolf.
8. Guadalupe was an integral part of the world’s first great popular rebellion of the twentieth century, the Mexican Revolution (1910-20). Fighting under the slogan “land and liberty,” revolutionary peasant leader Emiliano Zapata and his fighters carried the Mestiza Mary on banners into battle against Mexican oligarchs. Some Zapatista guerrillas carried on the tradition during their uprising in 1994 in the southern state of Chiapas.
9. In 1929 the official photographer of the old Basilica claimed to have discovered the image of a bearded man in the right eye of the original image of Guadalupe. Two decades later another “expert” not only confirmed the presence of the original bearded man but also claimed to see it in both her eyes. Since then, the “secret of her eyes” has expanded to include images of an entire family supposedly visible in both of her pupils. For believers, the images are reflections of what Guadalupe saw when she appeared almost five centuries ago to Saint Juan Diego.
10. The original image of the Virgin is said to be indestructible. Firstly the agave fibre which the image is imprinted upon has not deteriorated with time, unlike other cloths similar to the tilma. Most paintings on such materials last no more than ten years as the threads begin to break and deteriorate. Furthermore, the infrared and ultraviolet radiation from the tens of thousands of candles appears to have had no effect on the durability of the tilma.
Secondly, the Mexican Madonna has survived an acrid acid spill as well as a bomb blast. In 1785, a worker cleaning the glass where the Virgin was encased, fecklessly spilled 50% nitric acid solvent onto the image which should have been instantly destroyed. However, it is stated that over the ensuing 30 days the image miraculously self-restored. Guadalupe also survived a bomb blast in 1921. An anti-clerical activist detonated a bomb inside the Basilica consisting of 29 sticks of dynamite. These exploded immediately in front of the image of Guadalupe. The blast annihilated everything from the marble altar rail to the floor below the depiction. Windows 150 meters away were shattered. Yet the image itself remained intact and unscathed.
11. In continuity with her robust presence in the Mexican body politic, the ruling political party is named for Guadalupe. In 2012 current Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (aka AMLO), founded the National Regeneration Movement, a political party on the populist left whose Spanish acronym, MORENA, recalls the Virgen Morena (the Brown Virgin).
12. To the dismay of the Church in Mexico, the image of Guadalupe has been fused with that of her religious rival, folk saint Santa Muerte. The hybrid image, known as GuadaMuerte, integrates elements of the two most popular female figures on the Mexican religious landscape and has also been rebuked by a number of Santa Muerte devotional leaders who are not keen on provoking the Church in a country that is still 81 percent Catholic.
13. The Virgin is garbed in a sapphire blue tilma depicting the night sky. What is intriguing about the stars upon her cloak is that these have polysemic, syncretic meanings whilst also reflecting astrological information. Not only do the astral bodies portray her heavenly origins according to Christian theology, but they also evoke elements at the fulcrum of Aztec cosmogony. The Aztecs observed celestial bodies, tracking the movements of the sun,moon, and stars. Their religious beliefs were intimately intertwined with stellar motions. According to research completed in the eighties by Fr. Mario Rojas Sánchez and Dr. Juan Homero Hernández Illescas of Mexico, the stars on Guadalupe’s mantle correspond exactly with the position of the stars in the winter solstice on the morning of December 12, 1531, when Juan Diego is said to have had his final vision of the Virgin. For the Aztec, direct knowledge of the stars’ position would have been essential as a way of recording time.
14. Clothing and adornment in indigenous societies across the Americas have long been used to communicate social status and information about the wearer. Thus, the garments worn by the Mexican Madonna convey specific messages using indigenous symbols which would have indicated to Aztec peoples her origins and physical condition. The black ribbon worn by the Marian advocation and her loose hair are the most important of these. A black ribbon tied just above the waist was the way in which indigenous noblewomen communicated that they were pregnant. However, loose hair signified they were virgins. In the image of La Morena, the unusual combination of black ribbon and loose locks is used to signify that Guadalupe is not only the noblest of all women due to her heavenly origins but also as she affirmed to Juan Diego when they met atop the mountain, that she is the ‘Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God.’
15. Many have interpreted the Virgin’s hands as a call for unity. Symbolically la Morena’s hands joined together in prayer are said not only to confirm her request that the Bishop construct a chapel for people to pray in on Tepeyac Hill where she appeared, but are also believed to indicate her desire for indigenous and Spanish cultures to mesh, bonding to birth a new race. This assertion is made on the basis that her right hand is said to be lighter and resting upon a fuller, darker hand, indicating the Spanish presence melding with that of the indigenous peoples.
Dec 12, 2018 08:41:21 #
I never read fiction, but thought to find some redeeming quality herein, somewhere a hint of the "saving grace through faith" of the gospel.
There is no way to connect this mishmash to Jesus' commission to His followers to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel."
I can give you the etymology of her name:
Matthew 7:15:
"They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves." Berean Literal Bible.
"Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves." New American Standard Bible. "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves." King James Bible
If God, the Father had sent Mary, the deceased mother of Jesus back to earth, which He wouldn't, (for the dead cannot communicate with the living), that humble Jewish woman would never have asked for a church to be built "in her honor." She would have asked that it be built in her son's honor.
...and there would have been no reason for her to do that. Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, the Father, and when He returns to earth it will be at the head of a mighty army of all the saints, to make war on and defeat the Anti-Christ and his military with the sword (Words) of His mouth. (Rev. 19th chapter.)
You've thrown in Astrology, which God condemns repeatedly throughout the Old Testament, as it is worshiping the hosts (stars/planets) of Heaven.
So now, you've put strange fire upon the altar, for which Aaron's two sons were killed by God:
(Lev 10:1) "And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not."
(Lev 10:2) "And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD."
The combination of pagan religion, with tales from folklore has nothing to do with the Word of God, but much with the historical pattern of Roman Catholicism; conquest of nations, warfare, the conquering Roman Catholic church, and a touch of fertility religion, that's all you've got here.
Andrew Chesnut
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/theglobalcatholicreview/2018/12/15-fascinating-facts-about-the-virgin-of-guadalupe/
Co-authored by Dr. Kate Kingsbury* and Dr. Andrew Chesnut
Mexicans will tell you that they are 90 percent Catholic but 100 percent Guadalupan.
While the numbers aren’t entirely accurate anymore, it is definitely the case that the Virgin of Guadalupe has been a constituent part of Mexican national identity, reflected in the fact that millions of both women and men are named Guadalupe, many going by the nickname “Lupe,” such as a colleague at the University of Houston, Dr. Guadalupe San Miguel, Professor of Mexican-American history.
As specialists in lived religion, we’ve always been fascinated by the most important advocation of the Virgin Mary both in terms of territorial coverage and number of devotees.
The Virgin purportedly appeared to an Aztec peasant, Juan Diego, for the first time on a hill called Tepeyac, in what is now Mexico City, on December 9, 1531, and told the Christian convert, in his native language of Nahautl, that she wanted a church built in her honor on the site of her apparition.
Juan Diego sought out the archbishop of Mexico City to share news of the miraculous apparition but was met with skepticism. The brown-skinned Virgin appeared to the Aztec peasant a second time in which Juan Diego recounted what she already knew, that he’d been rebuked by the archbishop.
Determined to have her church built and named Guadalupe, the Virgin instructed the middle-aged Aztec to try again with the top prelate in Mexico.
The dubious bishop asked for a sign of the Marian apparition at Tepeyac.
During her third apparition, Guadalupe told Juan Diego to gather some Spanish roses that had miraculously bloomed in his “tilma,” or cactus-fiber cloak.
The determined convert returned to the bishop and unfurled his tilma revealing not only the unseasonable roses but a miraculous image of the Virgin imprinted on the cloak, which can be seen today at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
La Virgen Morena (the Brown Virgin) is not only patroness of Mexico but also Empress of the Americas, from Chile to Canada.
While other manifestations of Mary claim at most a region or country, Guadalupe is the only one to reign over two continents.
And if that’s not enough, for a brief period in the mid-twentieth century she was also declared patroness of the Philippines, home to the world’s third largest Catholic population.
Having conducted research on the Mestiza Maria for a future book project, we thought that on the eve of her feast day, December 12, we’d share 15 fascinating facts about the Virgin who led Mexicans to independence from Spain.
1. Many Mexicans aren’t aware that the original Guadalupe is from Extremadura, Spain. In fact, Christopher Columbus was a devotee and even named the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe in her honor, after she purportedly saved his fleet from a storm at sea. The Spanish Guadalupe is one of several European Black Madonnas, so in her Mexican incarnation she actually became lighter complected as the Virgen Morena.
2. Prior to Guadalupe’s alleged appearance to the indigenous peasant, Saint Juan Diego, in 1531, Aztec goddess Tonantzin had been worshiped for decades at the very same site, Tepeyac, which is now home to the Basilica in Mexico City. Tonantzin means “Our Mother” in the Aztec language of Nahautl, so some skeptics contend that the Spanish colonial Church concocted the story of Guadalupe appearing to Juan Diego as a way to convert his fellow Aztecs and other indigenous groups to Christianity.
3. Despite his controversial canonization in 2002, there is no hard historical evidence that Saint Juan Diego ever really existed. In fact at the time of the contentious canonization process the abbot of the Basilica, Guillermo Schulenberg, resigned in 1996 claiming that Juan Diego had never existed and “is only a symbol.” The Aztec peasant was canonized, nonetheless, as part of a Vatican strategy to retain indigenous Catholics in Mexico and across Latin America who have been defecting in droves to Protestantism, especially Pentecostalism.
4. Art historians studying depictions of the Matroness of Mexico over the centuries have discovered that over time her skin color has become progressively darker, going from a lighter to a darker shade of brown. Studies on her historical development, such as Our Lady of Guadalupe by historian Stafford Poole, demonstrate that contrary to legend, it was Mexican creoles (people of Spanish descent born in Mexico), and not indigenous converts, who were the first devotees of Guadalupe and the primary propagators of her cult. Artistic renditions of Guadalupe became noticeably darker complected on the heels of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20), which led to the exaltation of the mixed-race mestizo as the new model of Mexicanness.
5. While devotion to her grew during the Spanish colonial era, it was independence from Spain, declared in 1810, that really transformed her into the national matroness that she is today. Independence leader Father Miguel Hidalgo launched the campaign for independence with the battle cry “Death to the Spaniards and long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!” The image of the Mexican Virgin emblazoned on flags, banners and peasant sombreros became the insignia of the armed rebellion against Spanish rule. Spanish troops, on the other hand, were led by the Virgin of Remedies, who was the preeminent advocation of Mary in Mexico until eclipsed by Guadalupe.
6. Besides her darkening complexion, La Morena remained relatively unchanged in artistic renditions until as recently as the 1980s. And the first artists to experiment with novel depictions of the Empress of the Americas were Mexican-Americans who didn’t feel as culturally and religiously constrained as their Mexican counterparts in exploring new ways of representing her utilizing all kinds of media. A bare-breasted Guadalupe created by artist Paz Winshtein was the object of considerable controversy when it was exhibited at a gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2014.
7. The etymology of her name is also the subject of considerable debate. Some linguists and historians point to Nahuatl origins while others, more convincingly, remind us that the name Guadalupe already existed in Spain, and thus we should look there for its etymological genesis. There is little doubt that the prefix “Guada” derives from the Arabic “wadi” or river valley. The jury, however, remains out on “lupe,” which many assert comes from the Spanish “lobo” (lupus in Latin) or wolf.
8. Guadalupe was an integral part of the world’s first great popular rebellion of the twentieth century, the Mexican Revolution (1910-20). Fighting under the slogan “land and liberty,” revolutionary peasant leader Emiliano Zapata and his fighters carried the Mestiza Mary on banners into battle against Mexican oligarchs. Some Zapatista guerrillas carried on the tradition during their uprising in 1994 in the southern state of Chiapas.
9. In 1929 the official photographer of the old Basilica claimed to have discovered the image of a bearded man in the right eye of the original image of Guadalupe. Two decades later another “expert” not only confirmed the presence of the original bearded man but also claimed to see it in both her eyes. Since then, the “secret of her eyes” has expanded to include images of an entire family supposedly visible in both of her pupils. For believers, the images are reflections of what Guadalupe saw when she appeared almost five centuries ago to Saint Juan Diego.
10. The original image of the Virgin is said to be indestructible. Firstly the agave fibre which the image is imprinted upon has not deteriorated with time, unlike other cloths similar to the tilma. Most paintings on such materials last no more than ten years as the threads begin to break and deteriorate. Furthermore, the infrared and ultraviolet radiation from the tens of thousands of candles appears to have had no effect on the durability of the tilma.
Secondly, the Mexican Madonna has survived an acrid acid spill as well as a bomb blast. In 1785, a worker cleaning the glass where the Virgin was encased, fecklessly spilled 50% nitric acid solvent onto the image which should have been instantly destroyed. However, it is stated that over the ensuing 30 days the image miraculously self-restored. Guadalupe also survived a bomb blast in 1921. An anti-clerical activist detonated a bomb inside the Basilica consisting of 29 sticks of dynamite. These exploded immediately in front of the image of Guadalupe. The blast annihilated everything from the marble altar rail to the floor below the depiction. Windows 150 meters away were shattered. Yet the image itself remained intact and unscathed.
11. In continuity with her robust presence in the Mexican body politic, the ruling political party is named for Guadalupe. In 2012 current Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (aka AMLO), founded the National Regeneration Movement, a political party on the populist left whose Spanish acronym, MORENA, recalls the Virgen Morena (the Brown Virgin).
12. To the dismay of the Church in Mexico, the image of Guadalupe has been fused with that of her religious rival, folk saint Santa Muerte. The hybrid image, known as GuadaMuerte, integrates elements of the two most popular female figures on the Mexican religious landscape and has also been rebuked by a number of Santa Muerte devotional leaders who are not keen on provoking the Church in a country that is still 81 percent Catholic.
13. The Virgin is garbed in a sapphire blue tilma depicting the night sky. What is intriguing about the stars upon her cloak is that these have polysemic, syncretic meanings whilst also reflecting astrological information. Not only do the astral bodies portray her heavenly origins according to Christian theology, but they also evoke elements at the fulcrum of Aztec cosmogony. The Aztecs observed celestial bodies, tracking the movements of the sun,moon, and stars. Their religious beliefs were intimately intertwined with stellar motions. According to research completed in the eighties by Fr. Mario Rojas Sánchez and Dr. Juan Homero Hernández Illescas of Mexico, the stars on Guadalupe’s mantle correspond exactly with the position of the stars in the winter solstice on the morning of December 12, 1531, when Juan Diego is said to have had his final vision of the Virgin. For the Aztec, direct knowledge of the stars’ position would have been essential as a way of recording time.
14. Clothing and adornment in indigenous societies across the Americas have long been used to communicate social status and information about the wearer. Thus, the garments worn by the Mexican Madonna convey specific messages using indigenous symbols which would have indicated to Aztec peoples her origins and physical condition. The black ribbon worn by the Marian advocation and her loose hair are the most important of these. A black ribbon tied just above the waist was the way in which indigenous noblewomen communicated that they were pregnant. However, loose hair signified they were virgins. In the image of La Morena, the unusual combination of black ribbon and loose locks is used to signify that Guadalupe is not only the noblest of all women due to her heavenly origins but also as she affirmed to Juan Diego when they met atop the mountain, that she is the ‘Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God.’
15. Many have interpreted the Virgin’s hands as a call for unity. Symbolically la Morena’s hands joined together in prayer are said not only to confirm her request that the Bishop construct a chapel for people to pray in on Tepeyac Hill where she appeared, but are also believed to indicate her desire for indigenous and Spanish cultures to mesh, bonding to birth a new race. This assertion is made on the basis that her right hand is said to be lighter and resting upon a fuller, darker hand, indicating the Spanish presence melding with that of the indigenous peoples.[/quote]
There is no way to connect this mishmash to Jesus' commission to His followers to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel."
Doc110 wrote:
The etymology of her name is also the subject of considerable debate. ...“lupe,” which many assert comes from the Spanish “lobo” (lupus in Latin) or wolf."
I can give you the etymology of her name:
Matthew 7:15:
"They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves." Berean Literal Bible.
"Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves." New American Standard Bible. "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves." King James Bible
If God, the Father had sent Mary, the deceased mother of Jesus back to earth, which He wouldn't, (for the dead cannot communicate with the living), that humble Jewish woman would never have asked for a church to be built "in her honor." She would have asked that it be built in her son's honor.
...and there would have been no reason for her to do that. Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, the Father, and when He returns to earth it will be at the head of a mighty army of all the saints, to make war on and defeat the Anti-Christ and his military with the sword (Words) of His mouth. (Rev. 19th chapter.)
You've thrown in Astrology, which God condemns repeatedly throughout the Old Testament, as it is worshiping the hosts (stars/planets) of Heaven.
So now, you've put strange fire upon the altar, for which Aaron's two sons were killed by God:
(Lev 10:1) "And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not."
(Lev 10:2) "And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD."
The combination of pagan religion, with tales from folklore has nothing to do with the Word of God, but much with the historical pattern of Roman Catholicism; conquest of nations, warfare, the conquering Roman Catholic church, and a touch of fertility religion, that's all you've got here.
Andrew Chesnut
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/theglobalcatholicreview/2018/12/15-fascinating-facts-about-the-virgin-of-guadalupe/
Co-authored by Dr. Kate Kingsbury* and Dr. Andrew Chesnut
Mexicans will tell you that they are 90 percent Catholic but 100 percent Guadalupan.
While the numbers aren’t entirely accurate anymore, it is definitely the case that the Virgin of Guadalupe has been a constituent part of Mexican national identity, reflected in the fact that millions of both women and men are named Guadalupe, many going by the nickname “Lupe,” such as a colleague at the University of Houston, Dr. Guadalupe San Miguel, Professor of Mexican-American history.
As specialists in lived religion, we’ve always been fascinated by the most important advocation of the Virgin Mary both in terms of territorial coverage and number of devotees.
The Virgin purportedly appeared to an Aztec peasant, Juan Diego, for the first time on a hill called Tepeyac, in what is now Mexico City, on December 9, 1531, and told the Christian convert, in his native language of Nahautl, that she wanted a church built in her honor on the site of her apparition.
Juan Diego sought out the archbishop of Mexico City to share news of the miraculous apparition but was met with skepticism. The brown-skinned Virgin appeared to the Aztec peasant a second time in which Juan Diego recounted what she already knew, that he’d been rebuked by the archbishop.
Determined to have her church built and named Guadalupe, the Virgin instructed the middle-aged Aztec to try again with the top prelate in Mexico.
The dubious bishop asked for a sign of the Marian apparition at Tepeyac.
During her third apparition, Guadalupe told Juan Diego to gather some Spanish roses that had miraculously bloomed in his “tilma,” or cactus-fiber cloak.
The determined convert returned to the bishop and unfurled his tilma revealing not only the unseasonable roses but a miraculous image of the Virgin imprinted on the cloak, which can be seen today at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
La Virgen Morena (the Brown Virgin) is not only patroness of Mexico but also Empress of the Americas, from Chile to Canada.
While other manifestations of Mary claim at most a region or country, Guadalupe is the only one to reign over two continents.
And if that’s not enough, for a brief period in the mid-twentieth century she was also declared patroness of the Philippines, home to the world’s third largest Catholic population.
Having conducted research on the Mestiza Maria for a future book project, we thought that on the eve of her feast day, December 12, we’d share 15 fascinating facts about the Virgin who led Mexicans to independence from Spain.
1. Many Mexicans aren’t aware that the original Guadalupe is from Extremadura, Spain. In fact, Christopher Columbus was a devotee and even named the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe in her honor, after she purportedly saved his fleet from a storm at sea. The Spanish Guadalupe is one of several European Black Madonnas, so in her Mexican incarnation she actually became lighter complected as the Virgen Morena.
2. Prior to Guadalupe’s alleged appearance to the indigenous peasant, Saint Juan Diego, in 1531, Aztec goddess Tonantzin had been worshiped for decades at the very same site, Tepeyac, which is now home to the Basilica in Mexico City. Tonantzin means “Our Mother” in the Aztec language of Nahautl, so some skeptics contend that the Spanish colonial Church concocted the story of Guadalupe appearing to Juan Diego as a way to convert his fellow Aztecs and other indigenous groups to Christianity.
3. Despite his controversial canonization in 2002, there is no hard historical evidence that Saint Juan Diego ever really existed. In fact at the time of the contentious canonization process the abbot of the Basilica, Guillermo Schulenberg, resigned in 1996 claiming that Juan Diego had never existed and “is only a symbol.” The Aztec peasant was canonized, nonetheless, as part of a Vatican strategy to retain indigenous Catholics in Mexico and across Latin America who have been defecting in droves to Protestantism, especially Pentecostalism.
4. Art historians studying depictions of the Matroness of Mexico over the centuries have discovered that over time her skin color has become progressively darker, going from a lighter to a darker shade of brown. Studies on her historical development, such as Our Lady of Guadalupe by historian Stafford Poole, demonstrate that contrary to legend, it was Mexican creoles (people of Spanish descent born in Mexico), and not indigenous converts, who were the first devotees of Guadalupe and the primary propagators of her cult. Artistic renditions of Guadalupe became noticeably darker complected on the heels of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20), which led to the exaltation of the mixed-race mestizo as the new model of Mexicanness.
5. While devotion to her grew during the Spanish colonial era, it was independence from Spain, declared in 1810, that really transformed her into the national matroness that she is today. Independence leader Father Miguel Hidalgo launched the campaign for independence with the battle cry “Death to the Spaniards and long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!” The image of the Mexican Virgin emblazoned on flags, banners and peasant sombreros became the insignia of the armed rebellion against Spanish rule. Spanish troops, on the other hand, were led by the Virgin of Remedies, who was the preeminent advocation of Mary in Mexico until eclipsed by Guadalupe.
6. Besides her darkening complexion, La Morena remained relatively unchanged in artistic renditions until as recently as the 1980s. And the first artists to experiment with novel depictions of the Empress of the Americas were Mexican-Americans who didn’t feel as culturally and religiously constrained as their Mexican counterparts in exploring new ways of representing her utilizing all kinds of media. A bare-breasted Guadalupe created by artist Paz Winshtein was the object of considerable controversy when it was exhibited at a gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2014.
7. The etymology of her name is also the subject of considerable debate. Some linguists and historians point to Nahuatl origins while others, more convincingly, remind us that the name Guadalupe already existed in Spain, and thus we should look there for its etymological genesis. There is little doubt that the prefix “Guada” derives from the Arabic “wadi” or river valley. The jury, however, remains out on “lupe,” which many assert comes from the Spanish “lobo” (lupus in Latin) or wolf.
8. Guadalupe was an integral part of the world’s first great popular rebellion of the twentieth century, the Mexican Revolution (1910-20). Fighting under the slogan “land and liberty,” revolutionary peasant leader Emiliano Zapata and his fighters carried the Mestiza Mary on banners into battle against Mexican oligarchs. Some Zapatista guerrillas carried on the tradition during their uprising in 1994 in the southern state of Chiapas.
9. In 1929 the official photographer of the old Basilica claimed to have discovered the image of a bearded man in the right eye of the original image of Guadalupe. Two decades later another “expert” not only confirmed the presence of the original bearded man but also claimed to see it in both her eyes. Since then, the “secret of her eyes” has expanded to include images of an entire family supposedly visible in both of her pupils. For believers, the images are reflections of what Guadalupe saw when she appeared almost five centuries ago to Saint Juan Diego.
10. The original image of the Virgin is said to be indestructible. Firstly the agave fibre which the image is imprinted upon has not deteriorated with time, unlike other cloths similar to the tilma. Most paintings on such materials last no more than ten years as the threads begin to break and deteriorate. Furthermore, the infrared and ultraviolet radiation from the tens of thousands of candles appears to have had no effect on the durability of the tilma.
Secondly, the Mexican Madonna has survived an acrid acid spill as well as a bomb blast. In 1785, a worker cleaning the glass where the Virgin was encased, fecklessly spilled 50% nitric acid solvent onto the image which should have been instantly destroyed. However, it is stated that over the ensuing 30 days the image miraculously self-restored. Guadalupe also survived a bomb blast in 1921. An anti-clerical activist detonated a bomb inside the Basilica consisting of 29 sticks of dynamite. These exploded immediately in front of the image of Guadalupe. The blast annihilated everything from the marble altar rail to the floor below the depiction. Windows 150 meters away were shattered. Yet the image itself remained intact and unscathed.
11. In continuity with her robust presence in the Mexican body politic, the ruling political party is named for Guadalupe. In 2012 current Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (aka AMLO), founded the National Regeneration Movement, a political party on the populist left whose Spanish acronym, MORENA, recalls the Virgen Morena (the Brown Virgin).
12. To the dismay of the Church in Mexico, the image of Guadalupe has been fused with that of her religious rival, folk saint Santa Muerte. The hybrid image, known as GuadaMuerte, integrates elements of the two most popular female figures on the Mexican religious landscape and has also been rebuked by a number of Santa Muerte devotional leaders who are not keen on provoking the Church in a country that is still 81 percent Catholic.
13. The Virgin is garbed in a sapphire blue tilma depicting the night sky. What is intriguing about the stars upon her cloak is that these have polysemic, syncretic meanings whilst also reflecting astrological information. Not only do the astral bodies portray her heavenly origins according to Christian theology, but they also evoke elements at the fulcrum of Aztec cosmogony. The Aztecs observed celestial bodies, tracking the movements of the sun,moon, and stars. Their religious beliefs were intimately intertwined with stellar motions. According to research completed in the eighties by Fr. Mario Rojas Sánchez and Dr. Juan Homero Hernández Illescas of Mexico, the stars on Guadalupe’s mantle correspond exactly with the position of the stars in the winter solstice on the morning of December 12, 1531, when Juan Diego is said to have had his final vision of the Virgin. For the Aztec, direct knowledge of the stars’ position would have been essential as a way of recording time.
14. Clothing and adornment in indigenous societies across the Americas have long been used to communicate social status and information about the wearer. Thus, the garments worn by the Mexican Madonna convey specific messages using indigenous symbols which would have indicated to Aztec peoples her origins and physical condition. The black ribbon worn by the Marian advocation and her loose hair are the most important of these. A black ribbon tied just above the waist was the way in which indigenous noblewomen communicated that they were pregnant. However, loose hair signified they were virgins. In the image of La Morena, the unusual combination of black ribbon and loose locks is used to signify that Guadalupe is not only the noblest of all women due to her heavenly origins but also as she affirmed to Juan Diego when they met atop the mountain, that she is the ‘Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God.’
15. Many have interpreted the Virgin’s hands as a call for unity. Symbolically la Morena’s hands joined together in prayer are said not only to confirm her request that the Bishop construct a chapel for people to pray in on Tepeyac Hill where she appeared, but are also believed to indicate her desire for indigenous and Spanish cultures to mesh, bonding to birth a new race. This assertion is made on the basis that her right hand is said to be lighter and resting upon a fuller, darker hand, indicating the Spanish presence melding with that of the indigenous peoples.[/quote]
Dec 12, 2018 09:43:06 #
Zemirah wrote:
There is no way to connect this mishmash to Jesus' commission to His followers to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel."
There is no way to connect this mishmash to Jesus' commission to His followers to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel."
Short and to the point. Well said. Mishmash is a good word to describe it.
I am continually reminded of how beautifully simple the gospel is and how the Catholic church spends so much time and uses so many words to contort it.
Dec 12, 2018 10:41:51 #
Rose42 wrote:
Short and to the point. Well said. Mishmash is a good word to describe it.
I am continually reminded of how beautifully simple the gospel is and how the Catholic church spends so much time and uses so many words to contort it.
I am continually reminded of how beautifully simple the gospel is and how the Catholic church spends so much time and uses so many words to contort it.
Amen and Amen both of you girls are spot on thanks for this Zemirah and Rose42 for those insights into Roman Catholicism and the lies that it encompasses to deceive the people.
Dec 12, 2018 10:56:17 #
Rose42,
Really more anti-catholic hate. . . Speech and denegrating the Mother Mary name and her Sons name Jesus Christ.
Since your so smart.
Scientificlly prove every 15 mystery’s that this cactus tilma cloak, image is fake, and all these 15 scientific facts are false.
Rose42 if the scientists can’t figure it out and defies earthly scientific reason.
Then you will not be able to answer scientifically these 15 Our Lady of Guadeloupe mystery’s.
So keep poo pooing yore Dead Protestant religion garbage compost.
And Anti-Mary and anti-Catholic rhetoric diatribe.
What a looser.
Really more anti-catholic hate. . . Speech and denegrating the Mother Mary name and her Sons name Jesus Christ.
Since your so smart.
Scientificlly prove every 15 mystery’s that this cactus tilma cloak, image is fake, and all these 15 scientific facts are false.
Rose42 if the scientists can’t figure it out and defies earthly scientific reason.
Then you will not be able to answer scientifically these 15 Our Lady of Guadeloupe mystery’s.
So keep poo pooing yore Dead Protestant religion garbage compost.
And Anti-Mary and anti-Catholic rhetoric diatribe.
What a looser.
Zemirah wrote:
I never read fiction, but thought to find some redeeming quality herein, somewhere a hint of the "saving grace through faith" of the gospel.
There is no way to connect this mishmash to Jesus' commission to His followers to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel."
There is no way to connect this mishmash to Jesus' commission to His followers to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel."
Dec 12, 2018 11:12:33 #
Doc110 wrote:
Rose42,
Really more anti-catholic hate. . . Speech and denegrating the Mother Mary name and her Sons name Jesus Christ.
Really more anti-catholic hate. . . Speech and denegrating the Mother Mary name and her Sons name Jesus Christ.
I never denigrated Christ but the Catholic church denigrates His perfect sacrifice with their idol worship of Mary.
Quote:
Scientificlly prove every 15 mystery’s that this cactus tilma cloak, image is fake, and all these 15 scientific facts are false.
Rose42 if the scientists can’t figure it out and defies earthly scientific reason.
Then you will not be able to answer scientifically these 15 Our Lady of Guadeloupe mystery’s.
Rose42 if the scientists can’t figure it out and defies earthly scientific reason.
Then you will not be able to answer scientifically these 15 Our Lady of Guadeloupe mystery’s.
No Doc. YOU prove this has anything to do with Christianity rather than demonic activity. It's been proven numerous times that Mary worship isn't biblical. The onus is on you and no one else.
Dec 12, 2018 13:29:20 #
December 12/10/2018 Can the Guadalupe Tilma Make An Atheist Convert ? !
María Isabel Giraldo
https://catholic-link.org/can-the-guadalupe-tilma-make-an-atheist-convert-5-signs-that-its-possible/?
Well, I believe it can.
In general, Our Lady appears to men and women of faith, and she does so in order to share a particular message to her children.
These apparitions, almost without exception, are accompanied by signs and supernatural occurrences which support the message.
In the case of Our Lady of Guadalupe;
There are several interesting attributes to the Tilma that make it a very strong piece of evidence for the existence of God.
Saint Juan Diego, to whom the Virgin appeared, asked him to give a message to the bishop, who demanded proof that his message was real.
The Virgin told Saint Juan Diego to go up the hill, grab some roses, and take them to the bishop.
It was December. Juan Diego didn’t hesitate. There were the roses (that weren’t in season).
He picked them up in his tilma and took them to the bishop as a sign of her wanting there a temple.
The tilma was the name in náhuatl, Juan Diego’s language, of the cloak that poor Mexican Indians used, knotted to their shoulder.
When Juan Diego arrived before the bishop and unfastened the tilma in which he carried the roses, these fell to the floor.
As it wasn’t the season, the bishop understood that the sign was real, but, for his astonishment, on the tilma appeared imprinted the Virgin’s image.
It’s important to note that the apparition at Guadalupe was in the year 1531, and from then until the modern day, scientists from many different backgrounds, both believers and skeptics, have had their hands on the tilma and have found evidence to back up what has been said about it verbally.
All, without exception, have confirmed that the tilma and its “image” have supernatural characteristics; and better yet, each time that it has been thoroughly examined, new signs of God’s miraculous hand have been found.
Check some of them out below!
Our Lady of Guadalupe Tilma
1. The Image is Painted by the One Who Painted All of Creation
Most of Mary’s titles that we know have a bodily representation of Our Lady;
That is, we know what the image of Our Lady of Lourdes looks like, or Our Lady of Knock.
They are all slightly different, and they are generally created by an artist who is referring to the accounts of the person who has seen the vision of Our Lady.
In the case of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the image imprinted on the fabric is of divine origin.
It doesn’t come from human hands, but it was painted but the one who painted dawn itself.
The image simply miraculously appeared on the tilma.
It was not painted by human hands.
2. The Tilma is Ancient and Should Be Fragile, Yet it Seems Indestructible
Many imitations with the best techniques and materials have been attempted, trying to reproduce Saint Juan Diego’s cloak with the printed image of Our Lady on it.
All the reproductions, which have actually been kept under strict care, barely last more than ten years at best- as the years go by, the quality of these painted copies deteriorates.
But for the actual tilma itself, it seems as though time has stopped.
The tilma has not, and does not deteriorate.
In fact more and more discoveries are made about it that make it seem more and more alive.
Experts conclude that there is no scientific explanation to this lack of deterioration, since the fabric with which the original tilma was made is of a plant origin, which should deteriorate very quickly!
All of this beside the fact that the place where the Guadalupe Basilica is located (where the fabric is kept) is a highly humid spot because of its proximity to a lake.
It’s a corrosive place where not even wood and metals can be saved.
The image has endured explosive attacks from just a few meters away, in which everything, included marble and metal structures, were destroyed, but the fabric and the glass (which at the time wasn’t even bulletproof!) were left intact.
On another occasion, while cleaning the frame around the tilma, nitric acid was spilled over it.
Under normal circumstances, this would have disintegrated it, but no harm was caused, even when the liquid covered it completely.
3. A Canvas From Another World
Here’s an explanation of what the actual tilma is like:
The image is printed over an ayate tissue made of maguey fiber, with no preparation on it.
It’s a very ancient tissue.
It is transparent despite the thickness of the thread.
Its dimensions are 140 x 170 centimeters, and it is formed by two parts united in the middle by a fragile vertical stitch, made with a maguey thread.
The painter Miguel Cabrera in his book “The American Wonder” says that the image is also on the tilma’s reverse.
It’s impossible that human hands painted this image over this canvas without previously preparing it with gear, starch, or prime, as it’s technically said.
Francisco Campos Ribera, from Barcelona, who is worldly known as an expert in pictorial techniques, and has worked in the first picture galleries in Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands, England, United States, and Canada;
After examining the fabric, observed that it wasn’t made to paint on it.
And concluded that “no human artist would have chosen to make his artwork in a canvas of this kind, without preparation”.
The American scientists, Smith and Callaghan, who worked at the NASA, and the painter Francisco Campos Ribera, affirm in their report of 1954, that on the Virgin of Guadalupe’s image there is no brush print.
Besides, known chemists have analyzed the pigments, which have no animal, vegetal, mineral, or synthetic origin.
In other words, it’s not known where they come from.
4. The Virgin’s Eyes Are Living And Functional
The summary is as follows:
Ophthalmologists have studied the supposedly painted eyes with clinic devices, and have found that they are living, organic, functional eyes.
Dr. Enrique Graue, ophthalmologist with international fame, director of Mexico’s ophthalmologic hospital, affirms:
“I examined the eyes with a high power ophthalmoscope, and I was able to appreciate in them eye deepness just as if I was seeing a living eye”.
In those eyes, the Púrkinje-Sánsom effect is perceived:
The image is triplicated at the cornea and at both sides of the lens.
This effect was studied by Dr. Púrkinje of Breslau and Dr. Sánsom of Paris, and in ophthalmology it’s known as the Púrkinje-Sánsom phenomena.
Exclusive of the living eye, this effect was also observed in the Virgin of Guadalupe’s eye, by Dr. Rafael Torija with an ophthalmoscope.
He certifies it with these words:
“The eyes of the Virgin of Guadalupe give the impression of vitality”.
Doctors such as Guillermo Silva Ribera, Ismael Ugalde, Jaime Palacio, among others, affirm it.
Since the year 1950, the Virgin of Guadalupe’s eyes have been examined by near twenty ophthalmologists.
Better yet, recent studies with high range microscopy assure that in the Virgin’s eyes the silhouettes of various persons are reflected, just as when we look in the eyes of the one in front and we see our reflection.
In the Virgin’s eyes, Saint Juan Diego himself is seen. Scientifically, it can’t be explained how in a seven-millimeter eye, twelve human figures can appear.
5. Other signs…
The tilma is supported by a metallic structure, which is constantly kept at 15°C to guard and preserve it fresh, but when it’s measured, it reaches the 36,5°C:
The temperature of a healthy human body.
It’s curious that the irregularities of the canvas, with its uneven threads, highlight the features more.
For example: one thicker thread makes the superior lip more prominent, and another one, the right eyelid.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Facts
María Isabel Giraldo
https://catholic-link.org/can-the-guadalupe-tilma-make-an-atheist-convert-5-signs-that-its-possible/?
Well, I believe it can.
In general, Our Lady appears to men and women of faith, and she does so in order to share a particular message to her children.
These apparitions, almost without exception, are accompanied by signs and supernatural occurrences which support the message.
In the case of Our Lady of Guadalupe;
There are several interesting attributes to the Tilma that make it a very strong piece of evidence for the existence of God.
Saint Juan Diego, to whom the Virgin appeared, asked him to give a message to the bishop, who demanded proof that his message was real.
The Virgin told Saint Juan Diego to go up the hill, grab some roses, and take them to the bishop.
It was December. Juan Diego didn’t hesitate. There were the roses (that weren’t in season).
He picked them up in his tilma and took them to the bishop as a sign of her wanting there a temple.
The tilma was the name in náhuatl, Juan Diego’s language, of the cloak that poor Mexican Indians used, knotted to their shoulder.
When Juan Diego arrived before the bishop and unfastened the tilma in which he carried the roses, these fell to the floor.
As it wasn’t the season, the bishop understood that the sign was real, but, for his astonishment, on the tilma appeared imprinted the Virgin’s image.
It’s important to note that the apparition at Guadalupe was in the year 1531, and from then until the modern day, scientists from many different backgrounds, both believers and skeptics, have had their hands on the tilma and have found evidence to back up what has been said about it verbally.
All, without exception, have confirmed that the tilma and its “image” have supernatural characteristics; and better yet, each time that it has been thoroughly examined, new signs of God’s miraculous hand have been found.
Check some of them out below!
Our Lady of Guadalupe Tilma
1. The Image is Painted by the One Who Painted All of Creation
Most of Mary’s titles that we know have a bodily representation of Our Lady;
That is, we know what the image of Our Lady of Lourdes looks like, or Our Lady of Knock.
They are all slightly different, and they are generally created by an artist who is referring to the accounts of the person who has seen the vision of Our Lady.
In the case of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the image imprinted on the fabric is of divine origin.
It doesn’t come from human hands, but it was painted but the one who painted dawn itself.
The image simply miraculously appeared on the tilma.
It was not painted by human hands.
2. The Tilma is Ancient and Should Be Fragile, Yet it Seems Indestructible
Many imitations with the best techniques and materials have been attempted, trying to reproduce Saint Juan Diego’s cloak with the printed image of Our Lady on it.
All the reproductions, which have actually been kept under strict care, barely last more than ten years at best- as the years go by, the quality of these painted copies deteriorates.
But for the actual tilma itself, it seems as though time has stopped.
The tilma has not, and does not deteriorate.
In fact more and more discoveries are made about it that make it seem more and more alive.
Experts conclude that there is no scientific explanation to this lack of deterioration, since the fabric with which the original tilma was made is of a plant origin, which should deteriorate very quickly!
All of this beside the fact that the place where the Guadalupe Basilica is located (where the fabric is kept) is a highly humid spot because of its proximity to a lake.
It’s a corrosive place where not even wood and metals can be saved.
The image has endured explosive attacks from just a few meters away, in which everything, included marble and metal structures, were destroyed, but the fabric and the glass (which at the time wasn’t even bulletproof!) were left intact.
On another occasion, while cleaning the frame around the tilma, nitric acid was spilled over it.
Under normal circumstances, this would have disintegrated it, but no harm was caused, even when the liquid covered it completely.
3. A Canvas From Another World
Here’s an explanation of what the actual tilma is like:
The image is printed over an ayate tissue made of maguey fiber, with no preparation on it.
It’s a very ancient tissue.
It is transparent despite the thickness of the thread.
Its dimensions are 140 x 170 centimeters, and it is formed by two parts united in the middle by a fragile vertical stitch, made with a maguey thread.
The painter Miguel Cabrera in his book “The American Wonder” says that the image is also on the tilma’s reverse.
It’s impossible that human hands painted this image over this canvas without previously preparing it with gear, starch, or prime, as it’s technically said.
Francisco Campos Ribera, from Barcelona, who is worldly known as an expert in pictorial techniques, and has worked in the first picture galleries in Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands, England, United States, and Canada;
After examining the fabric, observed that it wasn’t made to paint on it.
And concluded that “no human artist would have chosen to make his artwork in a canvas of this kind, without preparation”.
The American scientists, Smith and Callaghan, who worked at the NASA, and the painter Francisco Campos Ribera, affirm in their report of 1954, that on the Virgin of Guadalupe’s image there is no brush print.
Besides, known chemists have analyzed the pigments, which have no animal, vegetal, mineral, or synthetic origin.
In other words, it’s not known where they come from.
4. The Virgin’s Eyes Are Living And Functional
The summary is as follows:
Ophthalmologists have studied the supposedly painted eyes with clinic devices, and have found that they are living, organic, functional eyes.
Dr. Enrique Graue, ophthalmologist with international fame, director of Mexico’s ophthalmologic hospital, affirms:
“I examined the eyes with a high power ophthalmoscope, and I was able to appreciate in them eye deepness just as if I was seeing a living eye”.
In those eyes, the Púrkinje-Sánsom effect is perceived:
The image is triplicated at the cornea and at both sides of the lens.
This effect was studied by Dr. Púrkinje of Breslau and Dr. Sánsom of Paris, and in ophthalmology it’s known as the Púrkinje-Sánsom phenomena.
Exclusive of the living eye, this effect was also observed in the Virgin of Guadalupe’s eye, by Dr. Rafael Torija with an ophthalmoscope.
He certifies it with these words:
“The eyes of the Virgin of Guadalupe give the impression of vitality”.
Doctors such as Guillermo Silva Ribera, Ismael Ugalde, Jaime Palacio, among others, affirm it.
Since the year 1950, the Virgin of Guadalupe’s eyes have been examined by near twenty ophthalmologists.
Better yet, recent studies with high range microscopy assure that in the Virgin’s eyes the silhouettes of various persons are reflected, just as when we look in the eyes of the one in front and we see our reflection.
In the Virgin’s eyes, Saint Juan Diego himself is seen. Scientifically, it can’t be explained how in a seven-millimeter eye, twelve human figures can appear.
5. Other signs…
The tilma is supported by a metallic structure, which is constantly kept at 15°C to guard and preserve it fresh, but when it’s measured, it reaches the 36,5°C:
The temperature of a healthy human body.
It’s curious that the irregularities of the canvas, with its uneven threads, highlight the features more.
For example: one thicker thread makes the superior lip more prominent, and another one, the right eyelid.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Facts
Dec 12, 2018 13:52:41 #
Rose42,
Still no factual scientific evidence to disprove the Our Lady of Guadalupe Tilma ?
Only skepticism . . .
Thought so . . .
Doc110
12/12/2018 The Miraculous Roses of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Patti Armstrong
http://m.ncregister.com/blog/armstrong/the-miraculous-roses-of-our-lady-of-guadalupe
Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of the Americas and of the unborn, giving us great hope to overcome the culture of death of today.
While many people know the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s appearance in Mexico to Juan Diego on Dec. 12, 1531, not everyone knows the significance that roses played in the miraculous event.
Our family visited the shrine in 2006 and my husband Mark brought home a life-sized replica of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s image.
It hangs in our living room and he uses it during presentations that he frequently gives about this amazing story.
http://www.integratedcatholiclife.org/2013/12/mark-armstrong-lady-of-guadalupe-come-to-our-aid/
Although there is much to love about the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the part about the roses is one of my favorites.
Bishop’s Prayer
The story begins nearly twelve years after Hernan Cortes landed with Spanish soldiers and nearly ten years after their battles were over, which put an end to the practice of human sacrifice and gave Spain control.
But conversions to the Catholic faith through Franciscan missionaries occurred at a snail’s pace.
It even seemed that the natives were ready to revolt against the Spanish government, whose brutality undermined the missionaries’ efforts to evangelize.
In 1529, the first Bishop of Mexico, the Franciscan Fray Juan de Zumárraga, wrote to the king:
"If God does not act to remedy the situation as soon as possible, this land will be lost forever."
The bishop also prayed to Our Blessed Mother to intervene. He wrote in his journal that he had asked for a sign that his prayer would be answered:
Roses from his homeland of Castile, Spain.
On Dec. 9, 1531, as the simple peasant Juan Diego made his way to Mass in the early morning twilight, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to him on Tepeyec Hill.
She instructed him to see the bishop and ask for a temple to be built on the site of her appearance.
Naturally, Bishop Zumárraga was skeptical.
But Juan Diego visited him again the very next day and reported a second appearance from the Blessed Mother.
It was at the second meeting that the bishop asked for a sign.
While caring for his sick uncle for two days, Juan Diego missed the appointed third meeting with the Blessed Mother.
When he finally passed by on his way to Mass once again, she still appeared and let him know that his uncle would be healed.
It was then that Juan Diego asked for a sign to bring back for the bishop.
The Blessed Mother instructed Juan Diego to climb to the top of Tepeyac Hill where he would find flowers to pick and place in his tilma.
He was to keep them hidden until he saw the bishop. Juan Diego gathered the dark pink roses into his cloak with the help of the Blessed Mother.
Personal Sign
For a third time, Juan Diego was ushered in to see the bishop with a sign that the apparitions were real — Castilian roses!
That alone was a miraculous sign since they did not grow in Mexico, let alone in the middle of December.
Juan did not realize — until after he opened his cloak letting the roses tumble out — that an image of Our Blessed Mother was emblazoned on his tilma.
The bishop and others in the room fell to their knees as they saw the miraculous image.
They were astonished not because of the roses, but because before them appeared a colorful image of the Blessed Mother on the fabric of Juan Diego’s cloak.
It was the exact image of Mary that Juan Diego had encountered on the hill.
Both the bishop and Juan Diego were awe-struck at the miracle and the bishop now had no doubt that Juan Diego was telling the truth.
The roses, however, had not just served to hide the bigger surprise.
Our Lady of Guadalupe had given a very personal sign to the bishop with roses from his own hometown of Castile, Spain, that his prayer would be answered.
Our Blessed Mother’s image, clothed in the sun with the moon at her feet, was full of so much symbolism that the Mexican people needed only to gaze upon it to understand that the Blessed Mother had come to them from Heaven dressed as both a virgin but was also pregnant, to testify to the truth of the Catholic faith.
It transformed the Mexican country.
Within nine years of her appearance, nine million Mexicans were baptized into the Catholic Church.
Our Lady of Guadalupe is the reason that Mexico became a Catholic country.
She is the patroness of the Americas and of the unborn, giving us great hope to overcome the culture of death of today.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!
Still no factual scientific evidence to disprove the Our Lady of Guadalupe Tilma ?
Only skepticism . . .
Thought so . . .
Doc110
12/12/2018 The Miraculous Roses of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Patti Armstrong
http://m.ncregister.com/blog/armstrong/the-miraculous-roses-of-our-lady-of-guadalupe
Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of the Americas and of the unborn, giving us great hope to overcome the culture of death of today.
While many people know the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s appearance in Mexico to Juan Diego on Dec. 12, 1531, not everyone knows the significance that roses played in the miraculous event.
Our family visited the shrine in 2006 and my husband Mark brought home a life-sized replica of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s image.
It hangs in our living room and he uses it during presentations that he frequently gives about this amazing story.
http://www.integratedcatholiclife.org/2013/12/mark-armstrong-lady-of-guadalupe-come-to-our-aid/
Although there is much to love about the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the part about the roses is one of my favorites.
Bishop’s Prayer
The story begins nearly twelve years after Hernan Cortes landed with Spanish soldiers and nearly ten years after their battles were over, which put an end to the practice of human sacrifice and gave Spain control.
But conversions to the Catholic faith through Franciscan missionaries occurred at a snail’s pace.
It even seemed that the natives were ready to revolt against the Spanish government, whose brutality undermined the missionaries’ efforts to evangelize.
In 1529, the first Bishop of Mexico, the Franciscan Fray Juan de Zumárraga, wrote to the king:
"If God does not act to remedy the situation as soon as possible, this land will be lost forever."
The bishop also prayed to Our Blessed Mother to intervene. He wrote in his journal that he had asked for a sign that his prayer would be answered:
Roses from his homeland of Castile, Spain.
On Dec. 9, 1531, as the simple peasant Juan Diego made his way to Mass in the early morning twilight, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to him on Tepeyec Hill.
She instructed him to see the bishop and ask for a temple to be built on the site of her appearance.
Naturally, Bishop Zumárraga was skeptical.
But Juan Diego visited him again the very next day and reported a second appearance from the Blessed Mother.
It was at the second meeting that the bishop asked for a sign.
While caring for his sick uncle for two days, Juan Diego missed the appointed third meeting with the Blessed Mother.
When he finally passed by on his way to Mass once again, she still appeared and let him know that his uncle would be healed.
It was then that Juan Diego asked for a sign to bring back for the bishop.
The Blessed Mother instructed Juan Diego to climb to the top of Tepeyac Hill where he would find flowers to pick and place in his tilma.
He was to keep them hidden until he saw the bishop. Juan Diego gathered the dark pink roses into his cloak with the help of the Blessed Mother.
Personal Sign
For a third time, Juan Diego was ushered in to see the bishop with a sign that the apparitions were real — Castilian roses!
That alone was a miraculous sign since they did not grow in Mexico, let alone in the middle of December.
Juan did not realize — until after he opened his cloak letting the roses tumble out — that an image of Our Blessed Mother was emblazoned on his tilma.
The bishop and others in the room fell to their knees as they saw the miraculous image.
They were astonished not because of the roses, but because before them appeared a colorful image of the Blessed Mother on the fabric of Juan Diego’s cloak.
It was the exact image of Mary that Juan Diego had encountered on the hill.
Both the bishop and Juan Diego were awe-struck at the miracle and the bishop now had no doubt that Juan Diego was telling the truth.
The roses, however, had not just served to hide the bigger surprise.
Our Lady of Guadalupe had given a very personal sign to the bishop with roses from his own hometown of Castile, Spain, that his prayer would be answered.
Our Blessed Mother’s image, clothed in the sun with the moon at her feet, was full of so much symbolism that the Mexican people needed only to gaze upon it to understand that the Blessed Mother had come to them from Heaven dressed as both a virgin but was also pregnant, to testify to the truth of the Catholic faith.
It transformed the Mexican country.
Within nine years of her appearance, nine million Mexicans were baptized into the Catholic Church.
Our Lady of Guadalupe is the reason that Mexico became a Catholic country.
She is the patroness of the Americas and of the unborn, giving us great hope to overcome the culture of death of today.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!
Dec 12, 2018 14:02:11 #
Rose42,
Here is another Catholic ancient Relic "The Shroud of Turin."
Care to explain the Shroud of Turin scientifically ?
Here is the article . . .
Thought so . . .
Doc110
12/11/2018 Telling the Story of the Shroud of Turin
Jim Graves
http://m.ncregister.com/blog/jimgraves/telling-the-story-of-the-shroud-of-turin
“We emphasize that while many in our generation believe that science and faith are contradictory, they, in fact, are not.”
Lee Sweeney is director of the Shroud Center of Southern California
https://www.shroudcenter.com/ or
https://santiagoretreatcenter.org/shroud-center/
The Center was founded in 1996 by Dr. August Accetta to tell the story of the Shroud of Turin, which many believe to be the burial cloth of Christ.
The Center is currently housed in the Santiago Retreat Center in Silverado, California, and welcomes visitors free of charge.
Sweeney recently spoke about the work of the Shroud Center.
What do visitors see at the Shroud Center?
We have full-size replicas of the shroud, which measures about 14 feet in length by 3½ feet wide.
It is an exact replica of the original you’d see in Turin, Italy.
However, at the Center you can see more detail, as it is backlit in a light box and is at eye level.
We have both the positive and negative images.
When you view the shroud in the negative, you can see what amounts to a three-dimensional image.
The first negative image was seen in 1898 [taken by photographer Secondo Pia] and was previously unknown.
It is really quite amazing.
We also have a 360-degree representation of all the major scientific studies that have been done on the shroud.
It is the single most studied artifact in all of human history.
We have them in sequential order, fully explained, and visitors can get the answers to many of the questions they might have.
We have information, for example, on the 1988 carbon dating study that supposedly showed that the shroud was a painting from the Middle Ages, sometime between 1200 and 1350.
It caused many people to lose interest in it.
However, further science showed that the carbon dating had been compromised, taken from an area of the shroud that was known to be a medieval side strip, added to the shroud so it could be hung up.
We have information on newer studies of textiles, which show that the shroud is similar to cloths from the first century Masada.
[an ancient Jewish fortress in Israel around the time of Christ], having a similar weave to those of the Masada.
We have information on pollen studies, which show traces on the shroud of plants which would have been found in Jerusalem at Christ’s time.
What are some points that you try to emphasize to visitors?
We emphasize that while many in our generation believe that science and faith are contradictory, they, in fact, are not.
Science points to faith.
The prominent priest-philosopher Jesuit Father Robert Spitzer, for example, is on our Shroud Center board of directors.
He has devoted much of his career to demonstrating the harmony between science and faith.
He has a special interest in the shroud because it is wonderful evidence of the intersection of harmony and faith.
Young people come to us looking for answers.
They want the truth.
Many are rejecting faith because of the false belief that science has disproven faith.
But seeing and experiencing the shroud is something that can really open their eyes to a new way of thinking.
How does the shroud affect you personally?
I was raised Catholic but became a militant atheist while in the university system.
I came back to God, though, and have always had an interest in evidence for faith.
Professionally I was involved in technology, but I also have a background in art history.
When I first got involved with the Shroud Center in 2000, it was mostly because I thought it was a historical curiosity.
But in recent years, I’ve come to believe that the natural explanations for the shroud have been disproven.
So, we’re only left with one conclusion: that it is authentic and it is miraculous.
It is also a primary piece of scientific evidence for the passion as a historical event, and the resurrection as well.
What plans do you have for the Shroud Center?
We want to establish a quarterly series where we bring shroud experts for presentations at Christ Cathedral, which is the mother church of the Diocese of Orange in California, where we’re located.
We just had an event featuring Ian Wilson, a shroud expert, Dr. Accetta and Fr. Spitzer.
We’re also looking at creating educational videos for our website.
We’ve been in discussions with the people at Prager University, which is known for its short videos on current cultural and political issues.
We’d like to do something similar relating to the shroud.
We believe that short videos with good graphics is an excellent way to relay information to the general public today.
And, we’re certainly going to continue to welcome visitors and introduce them to the shroud, which we refer to as the single most studied artifact in all of human history.
To visit the Shroud Center, or for more information, contact Lee Sweeney.
(714) 342-1881 or Lee.Sweeney123@aol.com.
Here is another Catholic ancient Relic "The Shroud of Turin."
Care to explain the Shroud of Turin scientifically ?
Here is the article . . .
Thought so . . .
Doc110
12/11/2018 Telling the Story of the Shroud of Turin
Jim Graves
http://m.ncregister.com/blog/jimgraves/telling-the-story-of-the-shroud-of-turin
“We emphasize that while many in our generation believe that science and faith are contradictory, they, in fact, are not.”
Lee Sweeney is director of the Shroud Center of Southern California
https://www.shroudcenter.com/ or
https://santiagoretreatcenter.org/shroud-center/
The Center was founded in 1996 by Dr. August Accetta to tell the story of the Shroud of Turin, which many believe to be the burial cloth of Christ.
The Center is currently housed in the Santiago Retreat Center in Silverado, California, and welcomes visitors free of charge.
Sweeney recently spoke about the work of the Shroud Center.
What do visitors see at the Shroud Center?
We have full-size replicas of the shroud, which measures about 14 feet in length by 3½ feet wide.
It is an exact replica of the original you’d see in Turin, Italy.
However, at the Center you can see more detail, as it is backlit in a light box and is at eye level.
We have both the positive and negative images.
When you view the shroud in the negative, you can see what amounts to a three-dimensional image.
The first negative image was seen in 1898 [taken by photographer Secondo Pia] and was previously unknown.
It is really quite amazing.
We also have a 360-degree representation of all the major scientific studies that have been done on the shroud.
It is the single most studied artifact in all of human history.
We have them in sequential order, fully explained, and visitors can get the answers to many of the questions they might have.
We have information, for example, on the 1988 carbon dating study that supposedly showed that the shroud was a painting from the Middle Ages, sometime between 1200 and 1350.
It caused many people to lose interest in it.
However, further science showed that the carbon dating had been compromised, taken from an area of the shroud that was known to be a medieval side strip, added to the shroud so it could be hung up.
We have information on newer studies of textiles, which show that the shroud is similar to cloths from the first century Masada.
[an ancient Jewish fortress in Israel around the time of Christ], having a similar weave to those of the Masada.
We have information on pollen studies, which show traces on the shroud of plants which would have been found in Jerusalem at Christ’s time.
What are some points that you try to emphasize to visitors?
We emphasize that while many in our generation believe that science and faith are contradictory, they, in fact, are not.
Science points to faith.
The prominent priest-philosopher Jesuit Father Robert Spitzer, for example, is on our Shroud Center board of directors.
He has devoted much of his career to demonstrating the harmony between science and faith.
He has a special interest in the shroud because it is wonderful evidence of the intersection of harmony and faith.
Young people come to us looking for answers.
They want the truth.
Many are rejecting faith because of the false belief that science has disproven faith.
But seeing and experiencing the shroud is something that can really open their eyes to a new way of thinking.
How does the shroud affect you personally?
I was raised Catholic but became a militant atheist while in the university system.
I came back to God, though, and have always had an interest in evidence for faith.
Professionally I was involved in technology, but I also have a background in art history.
When I first got involved with the Shroud Center in 2000, it was mostly because I thought it was a historical curiosity.
But in recent years, I’ve come to believe that the natural explanations for the shroud have been disproven.
So, we’re only left with one conclusion: that it is authentic and it is miraculous.
It is also a primary piece of scientific evidence for the passion as a historical event, and the resurrection as well.
What plans do you have for the Shroud Center?
We want to establish a quarterly series where we bring shroud experts for presentations at Christ Cathedral, which is the mother church of the Diocese of Orange in California, where we’re located.
We just had an event featuring Ian Wilson, a shroud expert, Dr. Accetta and Fr. Spitzer.
We’re also looking at creating educational videos for our website.
We’ve been in discussions with the people at Prager University, which is known for its short videos on current cultural and political issues.
We’d like to do something similar relating to the shroud.
We believe that short videos with good graphics is an excellent way to relay information to the general public today.
And, we’re certainly going to continue to welcome visitors and introduce them to the shroud, which we refer to as the single most studied artifact in all of human history.
To visit the Shroud Center, or for more information, contact Lee Sweeney.
(714) 342-1881 or Lee.Sweeney123@aol.com.
Dec 12, 2018 14:24:03 #
Rose42
The words of St. Thomas that appeared before the delightful movie, The Song of Bernadette:
“For those who believe in God no explanation is necessary.
For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible.”
Doc110
12/12/2018 Our Lady of Guadalupe Offers Us Hope
Jonathan B. Coe
https://catholicexchange.com/our-lady-of-guadalupe-offers-us-hope?mc_cid=546320d454&mc_eid=67495c3389
https://catholicexchange.com/author/jonathan-coe
With his unusual insight, C.S. Lewis sums up an important aspect of the human condition:
In the classic Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, the most important writer of the 20th century, explores the common ground upon which all of those of Christian faith stand together.
Bringing together Lewis’ legendary broadcast talks during World War Two from his three previous books The Case for Christianity, Christian Behavior, and Beyond Personality, Mere Christianity provides an unequaled opportunity for believers and nonbelievers alike to hear this powerful apologetic for the Christian faith.
“The Christian says, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.
A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food.
A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water.
Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex.
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.’”
In providing a list of examples, Lewis could’ve also said, “People desire tender maternal care, and, lo and behold, we have our earthly mothers and Our Lady, the Queen of Heaven, who is always there for us after our earthly mothers have passed on to the next life.”
In looking at the Apparition of Our Lady at Guadalupe, we could even say she bequeathed a gift for those who are skeptical of religion in leaving the miraculous tilma as evidence of the supernatural power of God.
Ethel Cook Eliot writes:
“In color it looks rather like unbleached linen.
Modern scientists are agreed that in the Mexican climate this cloth would naturally have disintegrated beyond recognition within twenty years.
On its fish-like web, no painting could ever have been done; and even on a properly prepared canvas the picture would within two hundred years have been browned over to the point of obliteration.”
Unfortunately, many skeptics persist in their unbelief despite the evidence of the miraculous tilma.
This recalls the words of St. Thomas that appeared before the delightful movie, The Song of Bernadette:
“For those who believe in God no explanation is necessary.
For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible.”
In the Apparition the Mother of God also left gifts for today’s practicing, orthodox Catholic through the example of her tender and compassionate relationship with Juan Diego.
This is crystallized in these words to him:
“Listen, and let it penetrate into your heart, my dear little son, do not be troubled or weighed down with grief.
Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain.
Am I not your Mother?
Are you not under my shadow and protection?
Am I not your Fountain of Life?
Are you not in the folds of my mantle?
In the crossing of my arms?
Is there anything else you need?”
Much of Mary’s tenderness towards Diego was rooted in the fact that she saw much of her Son in him.
Juan was conformed to her Son’s image.
(Rom. 8:29).
His humility is very clear in the narrative:
“So I beg you, noble Lady, entrust this message to someone of importance … For I am only a lowly peasant, and you, my Lady, have sent me to a place where I have no standing.”
Through St. Faustina in the Divine Mercy we learn that the meek, humble, and children most closely resemble the heart of Christ because of their lowliness.
It’s interesting to note that the Mother of God often chooses children and child-like adults to be ambassadors of her message in different apparitions.
Yes, Juan Diego was a middle-aged man but there is a simplicity and naivete about him that make him very much like other child-like visionaries.
Our Lady didn’t just pick anybody for this mission but chose Juan in particular:
“I have many servants and messengers I could charge with delivery of my message.
But it is altogether necessary that you should be the one to undertake this mission…”
First and foremost, because Juan was profoundly humble, God could pour out torrents of his grace through Mary to him and not worry about him being lifted up in pride.
St. Basil went so far as to call humility the all-encompassing virtue because it contains within itself all the others.
This makes sense because, if pride is at the root of the Seven Deadly Sins, then it follows that humility undergirds and infuses their opposite, life-giving virtues.
Juan Diego was also chosen because God delights in using the “nobodies” of this world to accomplish his sublime purposes:
“For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth;
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong,
God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”
(I Cor. 1:26-29).
I often think of stay-at-home moms who are disrespected by academics and the elite opinion-makers of the New York Times and yet fulfill the most important mission:
Inculcating virtue and religious belief in the next generation.
Also, just because you are a janitor at Walmart doesn’t mean that Our Lady can’t use you to advance the kingdom of God in significant ways.
Our Lady also chose Juan because he was an indigenous person and this showed God’s love for a people that some Spaniards despised.
They were seen as a primitive people who had participated in human sacrifice and were easy to write off.
I grew up 18 miles east of Los Angeles and, when I left home for good, my neighborhood and hometown had become overgrown with theft, drugs, gangs, and violence.
It was easy to write off.
I came back home five years later and a certain evangelical-charismatic group led by Mexican-Americans had launched a very effective outreach in my neighborhood.
People were leaving the gangs, getting off drugs, going to church services, and participating in Bible studies!
What’s easy to overlook is that the Mother of God chose Diego because he was available.
Not every self-identified Catholic is available to fulfill her agenda.
Look at the parable of the wedding feast.
Many made excuses as to why they couldn’t make it:
“I bought a field; I must go and see it;”
“I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out;”
“I just got married so I cannot come”
(Lk. 14: 12-24).
How many will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and regret that their relationship to the King of Kings got crowded out by other things!
Some practicing Catholics may be reading this and feel dejected:
“I’m not a saint like Diego.
I struggle with ‘X.’ Our Lady can’t love me or use me.”
How wrong you are! Let’s say you grew up with unmet emotional needs (love, acceptance, belonging-ness) in your family of origin and turned to food for comfort and now struggle with over-eating (gluttony).
You’re fine for a couple of weeks and then wipe out a cookie-sheet of brownies.
You go to Confession and last another two or three weeks until you eat enough seafood fettuccine for three people.
The tender mercies of Our Lady are turned to you more than Diego because you need them more.
Remember: “A righteous man falls seven times, and rises again; but the wicked are overthrown by calamity.”
(Prov. 24:16).
Keep wearing a path to the Confessional; Don’t give up.
Also, repeated failures can, in time, produce a fragrant humility in the person that is treasured by both Christ and his Mother.
We see this in the story of the prodigal son,
The woman of ill-repute who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears,
And the tax collector who beat his breast and said, “Lord have mercy on me a sinner.”
Yes, sin is never a good idea but God can bring much good out of a protracted struggle with it.
Also, Our Lady can use the person struggling with gluttony.
This is what Henri Nouwen called “wounded healers”: the person struggling with over-eating is a good candidate to help others struggling with the same sin.
I’d be remiss not to mention one of the central messages of the Apparition at Guadalupe:
The Mother of God is a unifier and loves to bring people together.
She wants Bishop Zumarraga to authorize the building of a shrine for her that will bring the natives and the Spaniards together.
In this way she is the one “who crushes the head of the snake” because dividing people is at the top of Satan’s agenda.
Just look at his history of discord.
He divided heaven in rebelling against the reign of God and seduced one-third of the angels in his fall from grace.
In the Garden of Eden he divided God from Adam and Eve and Adam and Eve from each other.
He divided the first brothers from each other as Cain killed Abel.
On a collective level, nation has fought wars against other nations since the beginning.
Mary’s agenda was to bring heaven to earth.
This is what the apostle John saw in heaven:
“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands”
(Rev. 7:9; emphasis mine).
Few of us are called to such a spectacular mission as Diego but we all are called, as St. Therese of Lisieux declared, to do small things with great love.
This may mean, without sacrificing truth or integrity, bringing people together in small ways.
Whether it be at home, work, our local churches, and/or in the public square.
The words of St. Thomas that appeared before the delightful movie, The Song of Bernadette:
“For those who believe in God no explanation is necessary.
For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible.”
Doc110
12/12/2018 Our Lady of Guadalupe Offers Us Hope
Jonathan B. Coe
https://catholicexchange.com/our-lady-of-guadalupe-offers-us-hope?mc_cid=546320d454&mc_eid=67495c3389
https://catholicexchange.com/author/jonathan-coe
With his unusual insight, C.S. Lewis sums up an important aspect of the human condition:
In the classic Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, the most important writer of the 20th century, explores the common ground upon which all of those of Christian faith stand together.
Bringing together Lewis’ legendary broadcast talks during World War Two from his three previous books The Case for Christianity, Christian Behavior, and Beyond Personality, Mere Christianity provides an unequaled opportunity for believers and nonbelievers alike to hear this powerful apologetic for the Christian faith.
“The Christian says, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.
A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food.
A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water.
Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex.
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.’”
In providing a list of examples, Lewis could’ve also said, “People desire tender maternal care, and, lo and behold, we have our earthly mothers and Our Lady, the Queen of Heaven, who is always there for us after our earthly mothers have passed on to the next life.”
In looking at the Apparition of Our Lady at Guadalupe, we could even say she bequeathed a gift for those who are skeptical of religion in leaving the miraculous tilma as evidence of the supernatural power of God.
Ethel Cook Eliot writes:
“In color it looks rather like unbleached linen.
Modern scientists are agreed that in the Mexican climate this cloth would naturally have disintegrated beyond recognition within twenty years.
On its fish-like web, no painting could ever have been done; and even on a properly prepared canvas the picture would within two hundred years have been browned over to the point of obliteration.”
Unfortunately, many skeptics persist in their unbelief despite the evidence of the miraculous tilma.
This recalls the words of St. Thomas that appeared before the delightful movie, The Song of Bernadette:
“For those who believe in God no explanation is necessary.
For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible.”
In the Apparition the Mother of God also left gifts for today’s practicing, orthodox Catholic through the example of her tender and compassionate relationship with Juan Diego.
This is crystallized in these words to him:
“Listen, and let it penetrate into your heart, my dear little son, do not be troubled or weighed down with grief.
Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain.
Am I not your Mother?
Are you not under my shadow and protection?
Am I not your Fountain of Life?
Are you not in the folds of my mantle?
In the crossing of my arms?
Is there anything else you need?”
Much of Mary’s tenderness towards Diego was rooted in the fact that she saw much of her Son in him.
Juan was conformed to her Son’s image.
(Rom. 8:29).
His humility is very clear in the narrative:
“So I beg you, noble Lady, entrust this message to someone of importance … For I am only a lowly peasant, and you, my Lady, have sent me to a place where I have no standing.”
Through St. Faustina in the Divine Mercy we learn that the meek, humble, and children most closely resemble the heart of Christ because of their lowliness.
It’s interesting to note that the Mother of God often chooses children and child-like adults to be ambassadors of her message in different apparitions.
Yes, Juan Diego was a middle-aged man but there is a simplicity and naivete about him that make him very much like other child-like visionaries.
Our Lady didn’t just pick anybody for this mission but chose Juan in particular:
“I have many servants and messengers I could charge with delivery of my message.
But it is altogether necessary that you should be the one to undertake this mission…”
First and foremost, because Juan was profoundly humble, God could pour out torrents of his grace through Mary to him and not worry about him being lifted up in pride.
St. Basil went so far as to call humility the all-encompassing virtue because it contains within itself all the others.
This makes sense because, if pride is at the root of the Seven Deadly Sins, then it follows that humility undergirds and infuses their opposite, life-giving virtues.
Juan Diego was also chosen because God delights in using the “nobodies” of this world to accomplish his sublime purposes:
“For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth;
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong,
God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”
(I Cor. 1:26-29).
I often think of stay-at-home moms who are disrespected by academics and the elite opinion-makers of the New York Times and yet fulfill the most important mission:
Inculcating virtue and religious belief in the next generation.
Also, just because you are a janitor at Walmart doesn’t mean that Our Lady can’t use you to advance the kingdom of God in significant ways.
Our Lady also chose Juan because he was an indigenous person and this showed God’s love for a people that some Spaniards despised.
They were seen as a primitive people who had participated in human sacrifice and were easy to write off.
I grew up 18 miles east of Los Angeles and, when I left home for good, my neighborhood and hometown had become overgrown with theft, drugs, gangs, and violence.
It was easy to write off.
I came back home five years later and a certain evangelical-charismatic group led by Mexican-Americans had launched a very effective outreach in my neighborhood.
People were leaving the gangs, getting off drugs, going to church services, and participating in Bible studies!
What’s easy to overlook is that the Mother of God chose Diego because he was available.
Not every self-identified Catholic is available to fulfill her agenda.
Look at the parable of the wedding feast.
Many made excuses as to why they couldn’t make it:
“I bought a field; I must go and see it;”
“I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out;”
“I just got married so I cannot come”
(Lk. 14: 12-24).
How many will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and regret that their relationship to the King of Kings got crowded out by other things!
Some practicing Catholics may be reading this and feel dejected:
“I’m not a saint like Diego.
I struggle with ‘X.’ Our Lady can’t love me or use me.”
How wrong you are! Let’s say you grew up with unmet emotional needs (love, acceptance, belonging-ness) in your family of origin and turned to food for comfort and now struggle with over-eating (gluttony).
You’re fine for a couple of weeks and then wipe out a cookie-sheet of brownies.
You go to Confession and last another two or three weeks until you eat enough seafood fettuccine for three people.
The tender mercies of Our Lady are turned to you more than Diego because you need them more.
Remember: “A righteous man falls seven times, and rises again; but the wicked are overthrown by calamity.”
(Prov. 24:16).
Keep wearing a path to the Confessional; Don’t give up.
Also, repeated failures can, in time, produce a fragrant humility in the person that is treasured by both Christ and his Mother.
We see this in the story of the prodigal son,
The woman of ill-repute who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears,
And the tax collector who beat his breast and said, “Lord have mercy on me a sinner.”
Yes, sin is never a good idea but God can bring much good out of a protracted struggle with it.
Also, Our Lady can use the person struggling with gluttony.
This is what Henri Nouwen called “wounded healers”: the person struggling with over-eating is a good candidate to help others struggling with the same sin.
I’d be remiss not to mention one of the central messages of the Apparition at Guadalupe:
The Mother of God is a unifier and loves to bring people together.
She wants Bishop Zumarraga to authorize the building of a shrine for her that will bring the natives and the Spaniards together.
In this way she is the one “who crushes the head of the snake” because dividing people is at the top of Satan’s agenda.
Just look at his history of discord.
He divided heaven in rebelling against the reign of God and seduced one-third of the angels in his fall from grace.
In the Garden of Eden he divided God from Adam and Eve and Adam and Eve from each other.
He divided the first brothers from each other as Cain killed Abel.
On a collective level, nation has fought wars against other nations since the beginning.
Mary’s agenda was to bring heaven to earth.
This is what the apostle John saw in heaven:
“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands”
(Rev. 7:9; emphasis mine).
Few of us are called to such a spectacular mission as Diego but we all are called, as St. Therese of Lisieux declared, to do small things with great love.
This may mean, without sacrificing truth or integrity, bringing people together in small ways.
Whether it be at home, work, our local churches, and/or in the public square.
Dec 12, 2018 14:26:56 #
I don't care about a shroud Doc. I don't worship idols of any kind whether it be Mary or a relic.
There is absolutely no power in Christian relics. Even if the entire cross of Jesus were discovered intact, it would have no spiritual value. Relics do not, in any manner whatsoever, enable us to get closer to God. The humerus of a saint can do nothing for your spirit. Relics should not be prayed to, worshipped, or in any way be used as a means to better connect with God. Using relics in such a talismanic way is blatant idolatry (Exodus 20:3; Isaiah 42:8). An elaborate church filled with relics is no more valid a place for worship than a simple tent in a jungle. We worship the Lord in spirit and truth (John 4:24), not by idols, icons, or relics, whether genuine or fake.
https://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-relics.html
There is absolutely no power in Christian relics. Even if the entire cross of Jesus were discovered intact, it would have no spiritual value. Relics do not, in any manner whatsoever, enable us to get closer to God. The humerus of a saint can do nothing for your spirit. Relics should not be prayed to, worshipped, or in any way be used as a means to better connect with God. Using relics in such a talismanic way is blatant idolatry (Exodus 20:3; Isaiah 42:8). An elaborate church filled with relics is no more valid a place for worship than a simple tent in a jungle. We worship the Lord in spirit and truth (John 4:24), not by idols, icons, or relics, whether genuine or fake.
https://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-relics.html
Dec 12, 2018 14:29:54 #
Rose42
Oh, really . . . . The how can you explain this many scientific mysteries that "Man" can-not explain these unexplainable 15 phenomena ?
Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . .
https://aleteia.org/slideshow/slideshow-an-inside-look-at-the-hidden-symbols-found-in-our-lady-of-guadalupes-image/?from_post=375048
In the words of St. Thomas that appeared before the delightful movie, The Song of Bernadette:
“For those who believe in God no explanation is necessary.
For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible.
12/07/2018 What’s to be seen by looking into Our Lady of Guadalupe’s eyes?
https://aleteia.org/2016/11/07/whats-to-be-seen-by-looking-into-our-lady-of-guadalupes-eyes/
A gaze from heaven that changed the history of a continent
The eyes of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe are one of the great enigmas of science, according to a Peruvian engineer José Tonsmann, who has extensively studied this “mystery.”
This graduate of Cornell University has spent more than 20 years examining the image of the Virgin printed on the coarse and fibrous tilma worn by Saint Juan Diego, who received the apparitions that would decisively change the history of the continent.
The eyes of the image are especially mysterious. Although their dimensions are microscopic, the iris and the pupils present the highly detailed images of 13 people.
The same people are present in the left eye and the right, with different ratios, just as images are transmitted by human eyes.
The reflection transmitted through the eyes of the Virgin of Guadalupe is thought to be the scene in which Juan Diego brought the flowers given him by Our Lady as a sign to Bishop Fray Juan de Zumarraga, on December 9, 1531.
Tonsmann studied the images of Our Lady’s eyes using his experience from analyzing microscopic and satellite photographs, skills from his background while at IBM.
Tonsmann began to develop his study of the eyes in 1979.
He widened the iris in the eyes of the Virgin to a scale some 2,000 times the actual size and, through mathematical and optical procedures, was able to make out the characters printed in the eyes of the Virgin.
According to Tonsmann’s findings, in the image of Guadalupe, we have something “that has not been painted by human hand.”
Ignatius Press released last month a book called Guadalupe Mysteries, which goes more in-depth into the enigma of the images in Our Lady’s eyes, as well as other phenomena related to the Guadalupe apparition.
Oh, really . . . . The how can you explain this many scientific mysteries that "Man" can-not explain these unexplainable 15 phenomena ?
Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . . Cricket's . . .
https://aleteia.org/slideshow/slideshow-an-inside-look-at-the-hidden-symbols-found-in-our-lady-of-guadalupes-image/?from_post=375048
In the words of St. Thomas that appeared before the delightful movie, The Song of Bernadette:
“For those who believe in God no explanation is necessary.
For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible.
12/07/2018 What’s to be seen by looking into Our Lady of Guadalupe’s eyes?
https://aleteia.org/2016/11/07/whats-to-be-seen-by-looking-into-our-lady-of-guadalupes-eyes/
A gaze from heaven that changed the history of a continent
The eyes of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe are one of the great enigmas of science, according to a Peruvian engineer José Tonsmann, who has extensively studied this “mystery.”
This graduate of Cornell University has spent more than 20 years examining the image of the Virgin printed on the coarse and fibrous tilma worn by Saint Juan Diego, who received the apparitions that would decisively change the history of the continent.
The eyes of the image are especially mysterious. Although their dimensions are microscopic, the iris and the pupils present the highly detailed images of 13 people.
The same people are present in the left eye and the right, with different ratios, just as images are transmitted by human eyes.
The reflection transmitted through the eyes of the Virgin of Guadalupe is thought to be the scene in which Juan Diego brought the flowers given him by Our Lady as a sign to Bishop Fray Juan de Zumarraga, on December 9, 1531.
Tonsmann studied the images of Our Lady’s eyes using his experience from analyzing microscopic and satellite photographs, skills from his background while at IBM.
Tonsmann began to develop his study of the eyes in 1979.
He widened the iris in the eyes of the Virgin to a scale some 2,000 times the actual size and, through mathematical and optical procedures, was able to make out the characters printed in the eyes of the Virgin.
According to Tonsmann’s findings, in the image of Guadalupe, we have something “that has not been painted by human hand.”
Ignatius Press released last month a book called Guadalupe Mysteries, which goes more in-depth into the enigma of the images in Our Lady’s eyes, as well as other phenomena related to the Guadalupe apparition.
Dec 12, 2018 14:33:17 #
“False gods, attempts to represent the true God, and indeed, all material things which are worshipped, are so much filth upon the face of the earth, whether they be crosses, crucifixes, virgins, wafers, relics, or even the Pope himself. We are by far too mealy mouthed about these infamous abominations: God abhors them, and so should we. To renounce the glory of spiritual worship for outward pomp and show is the height of folly, and deserves to be treated as such.” (C.H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Psalm 106:20)
Dec 12, 2018 15:20:08 #
Rose I love Proving you wrong.
And the personal wild tales, unethical and un-Christian Protestant fabricated statements that you come up with, it's astounding.
Doc110
10/21/2015 Biblical Evidence and Reasoned Arguments for Relics. (Part 1)
Dave Armstrong.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2015/10/biblical-evidence-for-relics.html
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2006/07/books-by-dave-armstrong-catholic_31.html
2 Kings 13:20-2
So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year.
And as a man was being buried, lo, a marauding band was seen and the man was cast into the grave of Elisha; and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood on his feet.
As an introduction to the Catholic conception of matter as a conveyor of grace:
The fundamental assumption behind things such as relics and sacramentals, I shall cite John Henry Newman, from his famous, profoundly influential work, Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, written in 1845, while still an Anglican (but just before he converted to Catholicism):
Christianity . . . taught that the Highest had taken a portion of that corrupt mass upon Himself, in order to the sanctification of the whole; that, as a first fruits of His purpose, He had purified from all sin that very portion of it which He took into His Eternal Person, . . .
It taught that the Highest had in that flesh died on the Cross, and that His blood had an expiatory power; moreover, that He had risen again in that flesh, and had carried that flesh with Him into heaven, and that from that flesh, glorified and deified in Him, He never would be divided.
As a first consequence of these awful doctrines comes that of the resurrection of the bodies of His Saints, and of their future glorification with Him; next, that of the sanctity of their relics . . .
(Part II, Chapter X, Section 1, 401-402)
Thomas Howard, also an Anglican on the verge of conversion to Catholicism at the time he wrote the following, picked up the same theme of the unbiblical Protestant tendency to pit matter against spirit:
By avoiding the dangers of magic and idolatry on the one hand, evangelicalism runs itself very near the shoals of Manichaeanism on the other – the view, that is, that pits the spiritual against the physical.
(Evangelical is Not Enough, 35)
Catholic apologist Bertrand Conway elaborates:
The Catholic Church does not teach that there is any magical virtue or any curative efficacy in the relic itself.
The Church merely says, following the Scriptures, that they are often the occasion of God’s miracles. In the Old Law we read of the veneration of the Jews for the bones of Joseph
(Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32), and of the prophet Eliseus which raised a dead man to life (2 Kings 13:21) . . .
(The Question Box, 373)
With this background, let’s examine some examples of how Protestants have interpreted 2 Kings 13:20-21.
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary – somewhat typically, it seems – admits the validity of the principle involved but then immediately proceeds to irrationally mock the Catholic belief-system concerning relics which derives from it:
This shows that the prophet did not perform his miracles by any powers of his own, but by the power of God; and he chose to honour his servant, by making even his bones the instrument of another miracle after his death.
This is the first, and I believe the last, account of a true miracle performed by the bones of a dead man; and yet on it and such like the whole system of miraculous working relics has been founded by the popish Church.
With this sort of mentality, I guess the examples from the Bible, and explicit biblical precedents and proof texts for any Christian belief or practice are irrelevant.
Clarke’s hidden hostile assumption seems to be that the only criterion we have for knowing that a belief is false and implausible (regardless of the biblical data) is whether the “popish Church” espouses it. If it does do so, it must be false.
Presbyterian Matthew Henry, in his very well-known Commentary, manages to recognize the implications of the verse without adding the gratuitous swipe against the “papists”:
This great miracle . . . was also a plain indication of another life after this.
When Elisha died, there was not an end of him, for then he could not have done this. From operation we may infer existence . . . Elijah was honoured in his departure. Elisha was honoured after his departure.
To conclude this discussion on relics, I would add that veneration is essentially different from worship or adoration (reserved for God alone); it is a high honor given to something or someone because of the grace revealed or demonstrated in them from God.
The relic (and the saint from whom it is derived) reflects the greatness of God just as a masterpiece of art or music reflects the greatness of the artist or composer.
Therefore, in venerating it, God is being honored. The saint is being venerated only insofar as he or she is reflecting God’s grace and holiness.
If such an item is worshiped, the person doing it is not following Catholic teaching, which fully agrees with Protestantism with regard to the evil of idolatry, or putting something besides God in the unique place of God.
In the passage above, matter clearly imparted the miraculous and grace from God.
That is all that is needed for Catholics to reasonably and scripturally hold such items in the highest regard and honor (veneration).
It wasn’t necessary for the whole doctrine to be present in the verse; only the fundamental assumption behind it (matter can convey grace), which is the basis for the Catholic belief and practice.
Many Protestants (including Martin Luther himself, Lutherans, Methodists, Anglicans, Churches of Christ) accept this principle with regard to the waters of baptism, which – so they hold – cause spiritual regeneration to occur, even in an infant.
As for the “graven image” of Exodus 20:4: What God was forbidding was idolatry: making a stone or block of wood God. The Jews were forbidden to have idols (like all their neighbors had), and God told them not to make an image of Him because He revealed Himself as a spirit.
The KJV and RSV Bible versions use the term graven image at Exodus 20:4,
But many of the more recent translations render the word as idol (e.g., NASB, NRSV, NIV, CEV).
Context makes it very clear that idolatry is being condemned. The next verse states: “You shall not bow down to them or worship them” (NIV, NRSV).
In other words, mere blocks of stone or wood (“them”) are not to be worshiped, as that is gross idolatry, and the inanimate objects are not God.
This does not absolutely preclude, however, the notion of an icon, where God is worshiped with the help of a visual aid.
Idolatry is a matter of disobedience in the heart towards the one true God. We don’t always need an image to have an idol. Most idols today are non-visual: money, sex, lust for power, convenience, our own pride or intellects; there are all sorts of idols. Anything that replaces God as the most important thing in our life and the universe, is an idol.
Idolatry is also a “heart issue.” It’s all about what is going on interiorly, just as lust is. One can lust without having a person of the opposite sex right in their vision. The heart is always key in Christianity. Catholics and Orthodox worship Jesus through images (including crosses, crucifixes, and statues of Jesus), and we venerate saints via images.
The frequent Protestant objection and opposition to veneration of images or of relics (as in this case) is as silly as saying that a person raising their hands towards God in worship and praise during church is worshiping the ceiling.
That person may not have an image of God in their mind, but they use the symbolism of “upwards” as being directed towards God (yet God is everywhere, so they could just as correctly stretch their arms downward or sideways).
We are physical creatures; God became man, and so by the principle of the Incarnation and sacramentalism, the physical becomes involved in the spiritual. Icons and relics are both based on these presuppositions.
2 Kings 2:11-14:
“And as they still went on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried, ‘My father, my father! the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!’ And he saw him no more.
(End Part 1)
And the personal wild tales, unethical and un-Christian Protestant fabricated statements that you come up with, it's astounding.
Doc110
10/21/2015 Biblical Evidence and Reasoned Arguments for Relics. (Part 1)
Dave Armstrong.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2015/10/biblical-evidence-for-relics.html
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2006/07/books-by-dave-armstrong-catholic_31.html
2 Kings 13:20-2
So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year.
And as a man was being buried, lo, a marauding band was seen and the man was cast into the grave of Elisha; and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood on his feet.
As an introduction to the Catholic conception of matter as a conveyor of grace:
The fundamental assumption behind things such as relics and sacramentals, I shall cite John Henry Newman, from his famous, profoundly influential work, Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, written in 1845, while still an Anglican (but just before he converted to Catholicism):
Christianity . . . taught that the Highest had taken a portion of that corrupt mass upon Himself, in order to the sanctification of the whole; that, as a first fruits of His purpose, He had purified from all sin that very portion of it which He took into His Eternal Person, . . .
It taught that the Highest had in that flesh died on the Cross, and that His blood had an expiatory power; moreover, that He had risen again in that flesh, and had carried that flesh with Him into heaven, and that from that flesh, glorified and deified in Him, He never would be divided.
As a first consequence of these awful doctrines comes that of the resurrection of the bodies of His Saints, and of their future glorification with Him; next, that of the sanctity of their relics . . .
(Part II, Chapter X, Section 1, 401-402)
Thomas Howard, also an Anglican on the verge of conversion to Catholicism at the time he wrote the following, picked up the same theme of the unbiblical Protestant tendency to pit matter against spirit:
By avoiding the dangers of magic and idolatry on the one hand, evangelicalism runs itself very near the shoals of Manichaeanism on the other – the view, that is, that pits the spiritual against the physical.
(Evangelical is Not Enough, 35)
Catholic apologist Bertrand Conway elaborates:
The Catholic Church does not teach that there is any magical virtue or any curative efficacy in the relic itself.
The Church merely says, following the Scriptures, that they are often the occasion of God’s miracles. In the Old Law we read of the veneration of the Jews for the bones of Joseph
(Exodus 13:19; Joshua 24:32), and of the prophet Eliseus which raised a dead man to life (2 Kings 13:21) . . .
(The Question Box, 373)
With this background, let’s examine some examples of how Protestants have interpreted 2 Kings 13:20-21.
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary – somewhat typically, it seems – admits the validity of the principle involved but then immediately proceeds to irrationally mock the Catholic belief-system concerning relics which derives from it:
This shows that the prophet did not perform his miracles by any powers of his own, but by the power of God; and he chose to honour his servant, by making even his bones the instrument of another miracle after his death.
This is the first, and I believe the last, account of a true miracle performed by the bones of a dead man; and yet on it and such like the whole system of miraculous working relics has been founded by the popish Church.
With this sort of mentality, I guess the examples from the Bible, and explicit biblical precedents and proof texts for any Christian belief or practice are irrelevant.
Clarke’s hidden hostile assumption seems to be that the only criterion we have for knowing that a belief is false and implausible (regardless of the biblical data) is whether the “popish Church” espouses it. If it does do so, it must be false.
Presbyterian Matthew Henry, in his very well-known Commentary, manages to recognize the implications of the verse without adding the gratuitous swipe against the “papists”:
This great miracle . . . was also a plain indication of another life after this.
When Elisha died, there was not an end of him, for then he could not have done this. From operation we may infer existence . . . Elijah was honoured in his departure. Elisha was honoured after his departure.
To conclude this discussion on relics, I would add that veneration is essentially different from worship or adoration (reserved for God alone); it is a high honor given to something or someone because of the grace revealed or demonstrated in them from God.
The relic (and the saint from whom it is derived) reflects the greatness of God just as a masterpiece of art or music reflects the greatness of the artist or composer.
Therefore, in venerating it, God is being honored. The saint is being venerated only insofar as he or she is reflecting God’s grace and holiness.
If such an item is worshiped, the person doing it is not following Catholic teaching, which fully agrees with Protestantism with regard to the evil of idolatry, or putting something besides God in the unique place of God.
In the passage above, matter clearly imparted the miraculous and grace from God.
That is all that is needed for Catholics to reasonably and scripturally hold such items in the highest regard and honor (veneration).
It wasn’t necessary for the whole doctrine to be present in the verse; only the fundamental assumption behind it (matter can convey grace), which is the basis for the Catholic belief and practice.
Many Protestants (including Martin Luther himself, Lutherans, Methodists, Anglicans, Churches of Christ) accept this principle with regard to the waters of baptism, which – so they hold – cause spiritual regeneration to occur, even in an infant.
As for the “graven image” of Exodus 20:4: What God was forbidding was idolatry: making a stone or block of wood God. The Jews were forbidden to have idols (like all their neighbors had), and God told them not to make an image of Him because He revealed Himself as a spirit.
The KJV and RSV Bible versions use the term graven image at Exodus 20:4,
But many of the more recent translations render the word as idol (e.g., NASB, NRSV, NIV, CEV).
Context makes it very clear that idolatry is being condemned. The next verse states: “You shall not bow down to them or worship them” (NIV, NRSV).
In other words, mere blocks of stone or wood (“them”) are not to be worshiped, as that is gross idolatry, and the inanimate objects are not God.
This does not absolutely preclude, however, the notion of an icon, where God is worshiped with the help of a visual aid.
Idolatry is a matter of disobedience in the heart towards the one true God. We don’t always need an image to have an idol. Most idols today are non-visual: money, sex, lust for power, convenience, our own pride or intellects; there are all sorts of idols. Anything that replaces God as the most important thing in our life and the universe, is an idol.
Idolatry is also a “heart issue.” It’s all about what is going on interiorly, just as lust is. One can lust without having a person of the opposite sex right in their vision. The heart is always key in Christianity. Catholics and Orthodox worship Jesus through images (including crosses, crucifixes, and statues of Jesus), and we venerate saints via images.
The frequent Protestant objection and opposition to veneration of images or of relics (as in this case) is as silly as saying that a person raising their hands towards God in worship and praise during church is worshiping the ceiling.
That person may not have an image of God in their mind, but they use the symbolism of “upwards” as being directed towards God (yet God is everywhere, so they could just as correctly stretch their arms downward or sideways).
We are physical creatures; God became man, and so by the principle of the Incarnation and sacramentalism, the physical becomes involved in the spiritual. Icons and relics are both based on these presuppositions.
2 Kings 2:11-14:
“And as they still went on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried, ‘My father, my father! the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!’ And he saw him no more.
(End Part 1)
Dec 12, 2018 15:21:26 #
Rose I love Proving you wrong.
And the personal wild tales, unethical and un-Christian Protestant fabricated statements that you come up with, it's astounding.
Doc110
10/21/2015 Biblical Evidence and Reasoned Arguments for Relics. (Part 2)
Dave Armstrong.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2015/10/biblical-evidence-for-relics.html
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2006/07/books-by-dave-armstrong-catholic_31.html
Then he took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces. And he took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.
Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, ‘Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?’ And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other; and Elisha went over.”
Acts 5:15-16: “. . .
They even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and pallets, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them.
The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.”
Acts 19:11-12:
“And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul,
So that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.”
(cf. Mt 9:20-22)
1. Elisha’s bones were a “first-class” relic: from the person himself or herself.
2. These passages, on the other hand, offer examples of “second-class” relics: Items that have power because they were connected with a holy person.
(Elijah’s mantle and even St. Peter’s shadow)
3. And third-class relics: Something that has merely touched a holy person or first-class relic (handkerchiefs that had touched St. Paul).
Surveying a few examples of Protestant commentary on these verses, we find again that no real substantive objection is raised, so that, therefore, the Catholic basis for relics, grounded in these passages, stands unrefuted.
Thus, Matthew Henry refers to Elisha taking up Elijah’s mantle “not as a sacred relic to be worshipped.”
Catholics do not worship relics, but venerate them, because they represent a saint who in turn reflects the grace and holiness of God.
Henry offers no essential disproof that this is indeed a relic, only a potshot against a straw man.
God ultimately performs all miracles by His power, but in this case and many others He uses physical objects to do so.
(e.g., Moses’ staff, a Temple made of stone and wood).
Belief that God can use something in His creation for a miraculous purpose does not in any way, shape, or form imply that God is not responsible or the cause.
Adam Clarke cynically comments on St. Peter’s shadow, offering seven “disproofs” of relics:
A popish writer, assuming that the shadow of Peter actually cured all on which it was projected, argues from this precarious principle in favour of the wonderful efficacy of relics! . . .
Now, before this conclusion can be valid, it must be proved:
1. That the shadow of Peter did actually cure the sick;
2. That this was a virtue common to all the apostles;
3. That all eminent saints possess the same virtue;
4. That the bones, of the dead, possess the same virtue with the shadow of the living;
5. That those whom they term saints were actually such;
6. That miracles of healing have been wrought by their relics;
7. That touching these relics as necessarily produces the miraculous healing as they suppose the shadow of Peter to have done . . .
No evidence can be drawn from this that any virtue is resident in the relics of reputed or real saints, by which miraculous influence may be conveyed.
I shall briefly reply to Clarke’s seven points of contention:
1) That St. Peter’s shadow was instrumental in healings is at least as reasonable and plausible an assumption from the text as its denial.
2) and 3) Whether all the apostles and saints possessed this characteristic is logically irrelevant to the fact that it occurred with Peter and thus sets a biblical precedent for Catholic belief in second-class relics.
4) This is a non sequitur. The evidence for bones also potentially having such power is proven from the example of Elisha.
5) Whether a person was a saint is a matter of rigorous historical inquiry in the Catholic Church (usually taking many years).
6) Whether miracles have occurred historically as a result of relics is also a matter of historical substantiation. They certainly have, but proof of that is beyond our purview here.
7) Catholics are not saying that healing necessarily follows from contact with a relic, only that it may, and that this is one legitimate means that God may in some instances use to heal and otherwise bestow grace upon sinful men.
Clarke’s case against relics based on this Scripture passage is nonexistent (and mostly merely declarative, to the exclusion of substantive rational argument):
A combination of irrelevancies, straw men, wrongheaded analogies, conclusions that don’t follow, unwarranted demands, and outright skepticism of the occurrence of the supernatural.
(many Protestants – called cessationists — believe that all miracles ceased with the apostles).
Matthew Henry, in his commentary on Peter’s shadow, is not nearly so skeptical as Clarke:
If such miracles were wrought by Peter’s shadow, we have reason to think they were so by the other apostles, as by the handkerchiefs from Paul’s body (ch. xix. 12),
No doubt both being with an actual intention in the minds of the apostles thus to heal; so that it is absurd to infer hence a healing virtue in the relics of saints that are dead and gone.
This is excellent and no different from the Catholic view, except for the last clause, which does not at all logically or biblically follow.
Rather than recognize this instance as a clear proof of the principle of relics, Henry belittles relics as “absurd” with one portion of a sentence – itself containing an altogether unproven assumption:
hat in order for a healing to occur, it must be the intention of a person performing it (thus ruling out miracles as a result of relics, by definition).
But whence comes this “criterion”?
To the contrary, Elisha was dead but his bones still raised a man from the dead.
He certainly had no intention of healing that person (unless he did so from heaven).
By Henry’s reasoning, then, that clear biblical example would be absurd.
He himself grasps the implication when commenting on Elisha’s bones, but contradicts himself here and can’t bring himself to admit anything that might have a “Catholic odor” to it.
Catholics, however (like the overwhelming number of those in the early Church), are not limited by this bias against matter as a purveyor of grace and the notion of relics itself, and so can accept the Bible’s teaching, wherever it leads.
Likewise, John Calvin’s “argument” against relics in his commentary on
Acts 19:11-12
Contains plenty of mockery, straw men, and sophistry:
The Papists are more blockish, who wrest this place unto their relics;
As if Paul sent his handkerchiefs that men might worship them and kiss them in honor of them;
As in Papistry, they worship Francis’ shoes and mantle, Rose’s girdle, Saint Margaret’s comb, and such like trifles.
Yea, rather, he did choose most simple things, lest any superstition should arise by reason of the price or pomp.
But Calvin’s exegesis does not overthrow the fundamental principle illustrated by these texts, which form a strong biblical basis for the Catholic conception of relics –
Which belief suffers no harm whatever from all the above Protestant commentary.
(End Part 2)
And the personal wild tales, unethical and un-Christian Protestant fabricated statements that you come up with, it's astounding.
Doc110
10/21/2015 Biblical Evidence and Reasoned Arguments for Relics. (Part 2)
Dave Armstrong.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2015/10/biblical-evidence-for-relics.html
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2006/07/books-by-dave-armstrong-catholic_31.html
Then he took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces. And he took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.
Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, ‘Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?’ And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other; and Elisha went over.”
Acts 5:15-16: “. . .
They even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and pallets, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them.
The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.”
Acts 19:11-12:
“And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul,
So that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.”
(cf. Mt 9:20-22)
1. Elisha’s bones were a “first-class” relic: from the person himself or herself.
2. These passages, on the other hand, offer examples of “second-class” relics: Items that have power because they were connected with a holy person.
(Elijah’s mantle and even St. Peter’s shadow)
3. And third-class relics: Something that has merely touched a holy person or first-class relic (handkerchiefs that had touched St. Paul).
Surveying a few examples of Protestant commentary on these verses, we find again that no real substantive objection is raised, so that, therefore, the Catholic basis for relics, grounded in these passages, stands unrefuted.
Thus, Matthew Henry refers to Elisha taking up Elijah’s mantle “not as a sacred relic to be worshipped.”
Catholics do not worship relics, but venerate them, because they represent a saint who in turn reflects the grace and holiness of God.
Henry offers no essential disproof that this is indeed a relic, only a potshot against a straw man.
God ultimately performs all miracles by His power, but in this case and many others He uses physical objects to do so.
(e.g., Moses’ staff, a Temple made of stone and wood).
Belief that God can use something in His creation for a miraculous purpose does not in any way, shape, or form imply that God is not responsible or the cause.
Adam Clarke cynically comments on St. Peter’s shadow, offering seven “disproofs” of relics:
A popish writer, assuming that the shadow of Peter actually cured all on which it was projected, argues from this precarious principle in favour of the wonderful efficacy of relics! . . .
Now, before this conclusion can be valid, it must be proved:
1. That the shadow of Peter did actually cure the sick;
2. That this was a virtue common to all the apostles;
3. That all eminent saints possess the same virtue;
4. That the bones, of the dead, possess the same virtue with the shadow of the living;
5. That those whom they term saints were actually such;
6. That miracles of healing have been wrought by their relics;
7. That touching these relics as necessarily produces the miraculous healing as they suppose the shadow of Peter to have done . . .
No evidence can be drawn from this that any virtue is resident in the relics of reputed or real saints, by which miraculous influence may be conveyed.
I shall briefly reply to Clarke’s seven points of contention:
1) That St. Peter’s shadow was instrumental in healings is at least as reasonable and plausible an assumption from the text as its denial.
2) and 3) Whether all the apostles and saints possessed this characteristic is logically irrelevant to the fact that it occurred with Peter and thus sets a biblical precedent for Catholic belief in second-class relics.
4) This is a non sequitur. The evidence for bones also potentially having such power is proven from the example of Elisha.
5) Whether a person was a saint is a matter of rigorous historical inquiry in the Catholic Church (usually taking many years).
6) Whether miracles have occurred historically as a result of relics is also a matter of historical substantiation. They certainly have, but proof of that is beyond our purview here.
7) Catholics are not saying that healing necessarily follows from contact with a relic, only that it may, and that this is one legitimate means that God may in some instances use to heal and otherwise bestow grace upon sinful men.
Clarke’s case against relics based on this Scripture passage is nonexistent (and mostly merely declarative, to the exclusion of substantive rational argument):
A combination of irrelevancies, straw men, wrongheaded analogies, conclusions that don’t follow, unwarranted demands, and outright skepticism of the occurrence of the supernatural.
(many Protestants – called cessationists — believe that all miracles ceased with the apostles).
Matthew Henry, in his commentary on Peter’s shadow, is not nearly so skeptical as Clarke:
If such miracles were wrought by Peter’s shadow, we have reason to think they were so by the other apostles, as by the handkerchiefs from Paul’s body (ch. xix. 12),
No doubt both being with an actual intention in the minds of the apostles thus to heal; so that it is absurd to infer hence a healing virtue in the relics of saints that are dead and gone.
This is excellent and no different from the Catholic view, except for the last clause, which does not at all logically or biblically follow.
Rather than recognize this instance as a clear proof of the principle of relics, Henry belittles relics as “absurd” with one portion of a sentence – itself containing an altogether unproven assumption:
hat in order for a healing to occur, it must be the intention of a person performing it (thus ruling out miracles as a result of relics, by definition).
But whence comes this “criterion”?
To the contrary, Elisha was dead but his bones still raised a man from the dead.
He certainly had no intention of healing that person (unless he did so from heaven).
By Henry’s reasoning, then, that clear biblical example would be absurd.
He himself grasps the implication when commenting on Elisha’s bones, but contradicts himself here and can’t bring himself to admit anything that might have a “Catholic odor” to it.
Catholics, however (like the overwhelming number of those in the early Church), are not limited by this bias against matter as a purveyor of grace and the notion of relics itself, and so can accept the Bible’s teaching, wherever it leads.
Likewise, John Calvin’s “argument” against relics in his commentary on
Acts 19:11-12
Contains plenty of mockery, straw men, and sophistry:
The Papists are more blockish, who wrest this place unto their relics;
As if Paul sent his handkerchiefs that men might worship them and kiss them in honor of them;
As in Papistry, they worship Francis’ shoes and mantle, Rose’s girdle, Saint Margaret’s comb, and such like trifles.
Yea, rather, he did choose most simple things, lest any superstition should arise by reason of the price or pomp.
But Calvin’s exegesis does not overthrow the fundamental principle illustrated by these texts, which form a strong biblical basis for the Catholic conception of relics –
Which belief suffers no harm whatever from all the above Protestant commentary.
(End Part 2)
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