Today's the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas, and we celebrate her appearance to Juan Diego and the miraculous Tilma. Many attribute the remarkable conversion of Mexico to this; I have a personal interest.
There I was, years ago, saying the evening Office in a church on the suburban ghetto side of the DC/Maryland border. It was my first US parish and I prayed fervently that God would grant us real Marian devotion. No, not the typical Anglican small-icon-in-a-corner, fine as that is, but the whole nine yards.
Note Shrine at Back of Church
Perhaps you know the kind of prayer, heartfelt and white knuckled as you like, and there it was. The next day I went over to church to say Morning Prayer and knelt down in the usual place, but out of the corner of my eye something seemed different. It was.
Over against the back wall of the church sat a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe on a table, and not a small one either. This statue was a good four foot high and came complete with eyelashes. No kidding, the real deal.
A Typical Street Scene
It turns out some Mexicans had brought her over as an offering after I'd finished Evening Prayer. And there she was, La Guadalupana. Those of you who know what that means in an Anglican church without Marian devotion can imagine my reaction. But I'd prayed for it and found myself caught out!
In my last year in that parish, the infamous heretic bishop figure, John Chane, came to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation. He came with a couple of seminarians in tow from Virginia Theological Seminary, famous then for its lesbian ethics professor.
All Rigged up For Easter And Solemn High Mass
I showed one of the seminarians around the sanctuary before Mass, and he asked in his bow-tied way if we had any "programs." I answered, "No, not especially," and he sat down in the benches, looking skeptical and annoyingly brainy.
Thirty minutes later they began to arrive, at least 300 people and 35 confirmands; for goodness sake, it was standing room only and people spilled out onto the grounds.
Remember, Roman Catholics and big church Evangelicals, this is a lot for an Anglican church in Maryland. My bow-tied friend sat there, next to the banditos, and they were, meditating on the nature of the program. Well, you can't beat that old time religion.
A Statue
At the end of Mass, I directed heretic Chane to the Guadalupe shrine, where the people were 6 deep and in the spirit. He knelt down and lit a candle while I intoned the Regina Coeli. Moral of the story?
Don't underestimate the power of prayer and the intercession of Our Lady.
Ave,
LSP
