Roadside Pilgrim: A First Encounter With the Virgin of Guadalupe
The touristy town of Ensenada on the west coast of Mexico was the furthest south we got on a family road trip the summer of 2007. It felt good to have the distance of two international borders between me and my responsibilities as a Baptist pastor at a church in East Vancouver.
We decided to put up at a local hotel in the seaside town for a few days R&R before turning back toward home.
On the last day of our mini-holiday, I talked my husband into a day-trip inland to see the archaeological ruins of a 17th century Catholic mission a few hours drive into the interior.
The air conditioning on our hatchback had long since given out and we drove with all the windows down.The bickering in the backseat between our road weary 5 and 7 year-olds began almost immediately. I looked over at Loren. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea."
But Loren was as ready as I was to escape the tourist scene and get a taste of rural Mexico. So we pushed on, chugging our way up a lazy switch back into the dusty hills rising up from the coast.
It was at one of those turns on a road without a name that I glimpsed the arched pile of stones sheltering a life-sized painting of a woman in a blue cape and hood.
"STOP!" I cried. Loren slammed the brakes and we veered onto the gravely, roadside pullout.
I stepped out of the car stunned by this unanticipated turn-of-events.
"I can't believe it!" I said my voice dropping to a whisper. "This is the place Adriana (our Mexican neighbour back in Vancouver) told me about!"
Loren gave me a look.
"Don't you see?! It's the shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe."
Behind us a transport ground its way up the hill leaving Loren standing in a cloud of dust.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yes, absolutely. And to think we just happened upon it."
Loren didn't say anything.
"Abigail! Oliver!" I called back.. "You two have to see this." On my urging they emerged from the car into the blinding midday heat and stood beside me.
Abigail studied the chipped painting and folded prayers on scraps of paper tucked between the melted candles, plastic flowers and rosaries at Mary's feet.
"This is the site of a Marian apparition," I explained. "It's a world famous pilgrimage site."
"It doesn't look famous," said Abigail cautiously.
"That's because it's the off-season. But in December, pilgrims come by the busload, hundreds of thousands, some walking the last few miles on their knees."
Oliver looked around. "Where would the buses even park, Mom?"
I overroad their objections and proceeded to tell them the story of the Virgin's appearance to the Aztec peasant Juan Diego over 500 years ago.
"The bishop was skeptical at first, just like you two. He only believed when Juan Diego opened his cloak. An image of Mary was imprinted on the inside and a dozen roses fell from her hands to the floor at the bishop's feet."
As the story drew to a close the attention of all three in my audience waned and they turned away, distracted by an upward-soaring hawk in the distance.
I had the sacred ground beneath the Virgin's feet all to myself and returned my attention to her downward gaze. I wanted to offer a prayer fitting to such an encounter but my Protestant tongue felt thick in my mouth so I just stood in silence until summoned back to the car.
The next town we passed through was even called Guadalupe. "Told you," I said.
"And to think we almost missed it," Loren replied as he negotiated the potholes and donkey asleep in the road.
That evening back at the hotel I told our waiter about the miracle of our day. He laughed and said, "Of course the actual pilgrimage site is in Mexico City."
"Of course," I said, ignoring the glance that passed between Loren and the kids.
Later that night I studied the map and noticed that almost every other town in Mexico is called Guadalupe and that grottos dot the countryside like stars dot the night sky.
It was three years before I returned to Mexico. This time to do a Sacred Canopy project with the children from the Cuchilla del Tesoro neighbourhood in Mexico City. We told the creation story from Genesis drawing on Mexican art and cultural traditions.
Eve narrated the story, beginning with her grief at the death of her second-born son, Abel. In preparation for this uniquely Mexican telling we interviewed a number of Mexican women who had lost sons to drugs or gangs or attempts to cross the Mexican/US border.
Eva Guarneros Gaspariano as Eve in a Sacred Canopy production telling the story of creation backwards.
On our last afternoon I told my hosts there was one thing I wanted to do before I left Mexico: visit the Shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe.
They hailed a taxi and I joined the throngs coming and going from the religious complex built across a hill that takes over an entire neighbourhood in the eastern part of the city.
At the centre of the sprawl of churches and museums and plazas and souvenir stalls is the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It's a circular building with seven entrances to accommodate 10,000 people at a time for mass. And at the centre of the basilica is the enclosed glass case that displays the original image of the Virgin revealed to Juan Diego.
A conveyor belt has been installed across the front of the glass case to keep pilgrims processing through the hall.
I stood and watched the moving floor carry a group of Mexican grandmothers up to the glass case. Some fell to their knees on the conveyor belt, others wailed and crossed themselves, all reached out their arms and called out prayers – none ashamed to admit their need – before they were carried off beyond Mary’s reach.
The strength of these women who had lived their lives under the weight of empires and patriarchies - both religious and secular - astounded me. The depth of their devotion seemed a fitting match to the grandeur of the basilica.
Still I've never forgotten the dusty, out-of-the-way grotto on the backroads of Mexico where I first encountered the Virgin of Guadalupe. To this day the memory stands as a reminder that there is no turn on life's path where the mothering heart of God is not waiting to meet us.
As we approach the December 12 Feast Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe I leave you with this prayer by singer/songwriter, Tom Russell:
She is reaching out her arms tonight,
Lord, my poverty is real.
I pray roses shall rain down again,
From Guadalupe on her hill.
For who am I to doubt these mysteries
Cured in centuries of blood and candle smoke;
I am the least of all your pilgrims here,
But I am most in need of hope.