Today is the Feast Day of “Our Lady of Guadalupe.” Now talk about crossing borders… For me, it is a lived mystical experience in a faith process. For example, Our Lady of Guadalupe, manifest for me an absolute reality as the “Maternal face of God,” as La Madre Divina, (the Divine Mother) which represent transcending both the borders of mind (logic) and heart (emotion – spirit) towards understand her wisdom and the humanity of life as it reflects my existential reality; a Meztisaje (Meztiso) and ontological praxis as ‘Indigenous’ towards within the introduction of the other ‘European.’
Community reveals its mystical and transcendent exegesis that validates our Meztisaje (Mix-blood identity) as a cultural phenomenon and as a personal Theodicy represents a spiritual lineage and experiential value in God. The pedagogy and hermeneutics of the Meso-American identity/reality is one that offers wisdom for a people within the mundane, mixed with the divine as a cosmological synthesis in the journey towards wholeness; a transcendent journey as a people that finds unity in the many.
Thus, there is a natural engagement of sorts within this spiritual construct that is for me, growing into a reality far more greater than what the obvious speaks to. I am within the vision of the embrace to that of the divine Mother, La Virgen de Guadalupe, the feminine reality that is nature, which nurtures, and one who speaks as a faith within my own cosmology that is universal, diverse both culturally and anthropologically, [spiritually – mystically] whole.
Our Lady of Guadalupe used to introduce herself in the official account of the Nican Mopohua—The Aztec Narrative on Our Lady of Guadalupe says that she is: Inninantzin in huelneli Teotl Dios, “Mother of the God of Truth.” Inninantzin Inipalnemohuani, “Mother of the Giver of Life.” Inninantzin in Teyocoyani, “Mother of the Inventor of Humanity. Inninantzin in Tloque Nahuaque, “Mother of the One who is near and who is close by” which means Mother of the Aztecs, and all things find room in God. [This coincide with the names given the ancient Mexican Gods].
This same spiritual energy and spiritual anthropology are also reflective in the Eastern tradition, which speaks of the ‘Mother,’ who is one in the many, as in Shakti-Devi and in the Western traditions: Our Mother of Perpetual Help and Our Lady of Fatima. I love the story of Bernadette. Our Mother offers the world to discern the spiritual life, and to warn the leadership and people of a Church not to go astray from God’s love. She is the prophetic voice that we hear brings us to her son’s love and helps us to see for ourselves the compassionate love of the mother; that is what the sacred heart of Jesus offers the world. For this reason, we are listening. Therefore, you, the reader should listen at this time that we find ourselves in this eleventh hour…The Eastern tradition is well aware of this cosmology/anthropomorphic reality.
However, the aspect of the divine Mother as La Virgen de Guadalupe is a ‘Christian’ cosmology that is in reality an [“Indigenous one”] to the Mexican community and is a lived faith community and theology expressed as the “sacred absolute,” one that is also on a practical level with a shared reality with one another in the community, no matter where we are.
Moreover, one cannot be without the other; it is a personal communion that is engrained within the core of the Mexican/Chicano psyche as a people, similar to the baptism of the infants at Church, it is the consciousness and Meztisaje of the people, but not limited to a society, and that I, as Métis/Otomi, can only drink daily from this cup towards a prophetic vision in God as Mother. If one can look at the many ways upon observation to know of her presence looking at us, seeing in her eyes, the differences; (the blue and the brown eyes), seeing her hands, one white and one brown that speak of the stars reflective of an inclusivity of nations as one with the Father Creator.
Culturally, the basket will always be of a different design. A spiritual and inclusive design for me reflects a simple (yes) to my own hermeneutics. Looking at her face and her image fills me with awe and sense to humanity reflect an instantaneous prayer [conversation] with La Madre Divina as a direct medium or source to the sacred heart of God as Mother.
And like Juan Diego, one who does the right thing through her influence walks with him and as in (Conversatio Morum) via our own personal and communal conversion process invites the participation of God in action not only in our minds (intellect) but in our hearts (emotion/spirit).
For the link to “La Virgen de Guadalupe,” (tlecuauhtlalupeuh ), is an Eternal one, she has always been the one I have called my own. She is more than I can say and more than I can speak to. A reality that goes beyond what Church can or would ever want to hear of, lest we lock her up in the Archbishop’s house; very symbolic by the way! This is the broader message to the world, as in don’t leave the divine unity out by ‘locking’ her in.
