The Eucharistic Woman of Guadalupe

Dec. 1, 2022

When Our Lady appeared to St. Juan Diego, she came bearing the Lord of Life in her womb

By Msgr. Eduardo Chávez

Dec. 1, 2022

Editor’s Note: This text was adapted and abridged from a June 2022 interview with Msgr. Eduardo Chávez, who served as postulator for the cause of canonization of St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin.

Our Lady of Guadalupe’s apparitions to St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, a Native American layman of Aztec ancestry, took place from Dec. 9 to 12, 1531. The central point of this unprecedented event is that she did not come alone, but carried Jesus in her immaculate womb. The center of her message was that a “sacred little house” — a church — should be built for Jesus Christ our Lord to make him known and to exalt him. And at the center of her miraculously imprinted image on Juan Diego’s tilma, or cloak, is the black sash of motherhood — a sign that she is pregnant. All these signs point to the Virgin of Guadalupe as a Woman of the Eucharist.

MOTHER OF THE GOD OF TRUTH

Let us briefly recall the historical context of the apparitions. A decade earlier, in 1521, the Aztecs had been conquered by the Spanish with help from other native tribes. This brought an end to the horrific yet deep-seated cultural practice of offering human hearts and blood to the gods in order for the world to survive. After the practice was eradicated, a terrible depression descended over the native peoples, as their very existence seemed to be in peril. Add to this the spread of smallpox, which wiped out half the Indigenous population, several earthquakes, a solar eclipse and the appearance of Halley’s Comet in 1531, and in the eyes of the Indigenous peoples the world seemed to be falling apart. These were signs of a true apocalypse.

Meanwhile, among the Spanish, a terrible clash broke out between the missionaries and the Royal Audiencia, the highest tribunal of the Spanish crown. The former wanted to baptize the Indigenous peoples while the latter opposed baptism. Baptism would make them equal in dignity to the Europeans, and the conquistadors wanted to plunder their gold and enslave them. It got so bad that an attempt was made on the life of Friar Juan de Zumárraga, the first bishop of Mexico. In response, the bishop excommunicated the Royal Audiencia and placed the city under interdict. “Priests of Mexico City,” he announced, “undress the altars, consume the Blessed Sacrament, we are abandoning this city — it is to remain without God.” In 1529, in a letter to King Charles V, Bishop Zumárraga wrote in near despair: “If God does not provide the remedy from his hand, the land is about to be completely lost.”

In my opinion, the bishop’s plea for heavenly aid is a key for understanding how Jesus comes through the Virgin of Guadalupe. This is not just another apparition. It is an encounter with Jesus through the Virgin of Guadalupe, which was God’s answer to the bishop’s prayer.

So it was that on Saturday, Dec. 9, 1531, as St. Juan Diego was traversing the arid Tepeyac Hill on his way to catechism class, Our Lady of Guadalupe chose this simple layman to play a part a pivotal part in the salvation history of the New World.

“Juanito. Juan Dieguito,” a female voice calls out from above. Up goes Juan Diego to the beckoning voice at the summit of Tepeyac Hill. And what a surprise to be introduced to a woman speaking in his native Náhuatl tongue: “I am Mary, Mother of the God of truth through whom everything lives.”

Indeed, she brings none other than Jesus, who has offered his flesh and his blood, his humanity and his divinity, who has offered everything so that we may be saved. For this reason, the Virgin of Guadalupe is a Eucharistic Woman.

She goes on to ask, “I want very much to have a sacred little house to make him manifest and to offer him who is my salvation.” For me this is the key: “to offer him.” This is precisely a eucharistic offering. It’s as if Our Lady of Guadalupe were saying, “It is not your heart or your blood that is supposedly feeding and sustaining the cosmos. No! It is my Son, the truest God through whom all things live, who feeds and sustains you, who heals and saves you.”

A CIVILIZATION OF LOVE

Msgr. Eduardo Chávez, a canon of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City and postulator of the cause for canonization of St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, is pictured in June.
Photo by Spirit Juice Studios

On Sunday, Dec. 10, Juan Diego delivers her request for a “sacred little house” to Bishop Zumárraga. However, the bishop asks him for a sign.

Returning to Tepeyac, Juan Diego is told by the Virgin that she will provide a sign the next day. Yet when he returns home and finds his uncle near death, Juan Diego is filled with sadness, and the next day, he intentionally avoids the Virgin of Guadalupe, rounding Tepeyac Hill in search of a priest.

Our Lady then approaches him directly and says, “Do not be afraid. Am I not here, I, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need something more? Let nothing else worry you, disturb you. Your uncle is healed.”

With renewed faith and hope, Juan Diego receives the task of delivering the sign to the bishop himself: flowers from the lifeless Tepeyac hilltop. Without hesitation, Juan climbs up and discovers a garden of extraordinary flowers in midwinter. He places a bunch in his tilma and brings them back to the Virgin, who arranges them herself and sends them off with her envoy to Bishop Zumárraga. As Juan Diego delivers the telltale flowers, the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe appears upon his tilma. It was Tuesday, Dec. 12.

I understand this scene as representing unity: the image on the layman’s tilma in the hands of the bishop — thus, bishops in collaboration with laymen as everything is centered in Jesus Christ, our eucharistic Lord. It’s an image of the Catholic Church. And Mary is the first sanctuary, the first “sacred little house,” because she carries him in her womb. She is the living ark of the new convent, the immaculate tabernacle of the Sun of Righteousness.

“I have often said that the Knights of Columbus are the Juan Diegos of the modern world. With many acts of love and mercy ... they witness to the truth of God, to the Eucharist as the center of his Church, and to the respect for life from the womb to our last breath.”

Moreover, Our Lady of Guadalupe appears as a mestiza (mixed-race) woman, bringing together all peoples through an encounter with Jesus that transcends borders, cultures and languages. The woman of the Eucharist, clothed with the sun and standing with the moon under her feet, brings to us the owner of heaven and earth. The significance of the Guadalupan event is clearly understood by the Indigenous peoples and Spaniards, leading to mass conversion and altering the course of history.

This is something powerful for today’s world as well, nearly 500 years later, because it unites people in a civilization of love centered on the Eucharist. And this is why I have often said that the Knights of Columbus are the Juan Diegos of the modern world. With many acts of love and mercy, they are signs of the Church’s unity and build up the Body of Christ. They witness to the truth of God, to the Eucharist as the center of his Church, and to the respect for life from the womb to our last breath, when we will, God willing, enter into his eternal embrace.

*****

MSGR. EDUARDO CHÁVEZ is a canon of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City and a member of Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe Council 14138.

Archbishop William Lori celebrates Mass in the Church of the Gesù in Rome on Oct. 23, 2024.

The Eucharistic Woman of Guadalupe

MOTHER OF THE GOD OF TRUTH

A CIVILIZATION OF LOVE

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