A procession to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe in Palm Springs
Source: The Desert Sun

At this time of year, millions of people participate in processions like this across the American hemisphere, an event that unites two American continents, Spain and the Philippines. On or around Dec. 10, millions will march for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. No, it’s not just a Mexican celebration, although the miracle it commemorates happened near Mexico City in 1517. It’s meant to unite the continent.

This procession, pictured here, happened the other day in Palm Springs.

It’s worth considering in the age of democratic revolutions because its story is so interesting, and since such processions ritually mimic the process of democratic revolution – the spectacle of thousands of people coming into the streets – to mark some transformation. In this case, it’s spiritual rather than political, but the two usually intertwine, because politics is about people.

The march these days addresses the fundamental divide in the Americas, this awful idea that we in the western hemisphere are somehow two worlds, the Latin and the Anglo. These Guadalupe processions – dating from around 1517 – challenge this idea because the very premise is that this is for all nations in the Americas, not just Mexico.

Notice that in the Palm Springs one, the organizers warn at the side of the page, here, that no one is to bring any flags to the procession “to prevent any political misunderstandings.” What they mean, of course, in their delicately worded statement is that no Mexican flags should be waved because they might only enrage the non-Mexican locals and bring on talk about illegal immigrants instead of keep the focus on the interesting mission of Guadalupe itself.

It’s perfectly true that Mexicans are the most fervent celebrators of Our Lady of Guadalupe – they put the image on everything from altars to hubcaps, as this item from OC Weekly notes here. These processions are an exuberant mix of the sacred and the profane, something that parallels the spiritual and the political.

But what might the mission be? It’s in the story. The Spaniards came to Mexico and conquered it, and foisted their religion of salvation onto the Indians, except that they did everything humanly possible to compel the Indians to despise it. The Spaniards were cruel, they were dissolute, they were unkempt barbarians, they didn’t bathe, and they considered the Indians subhuman. There is no better way to make someone loathe your religion than to set a bad example. Of course, the Indians were repelled by the Spaniards’ religion.

Then … Juan Diego, a humble Indian, was walking in the desert one day and got a great vision from Heaven. It was the Lady of Guadalupe, representing the hated Spanish religion, except that instead of a Spanish face, she had an Indian face! Not only did she have an Indian face, she was on THEIR side instead of the odious cruel Spaniards who claimed to speak for her! Can you imagine the impact of that to the Indians?

Not only was she disgusted by these Spaniards who distorted her name, she came down to the Indians to tell them! Then she performed great miracles, strange ones, ones with roses and flower petals. Snows where it didn’t belong and other acts of power.

Juan Diego picked up the fantastical cactus-cloth tilma with our Lady’s image, and took it to his local bishop. The bishop of course, slammed the door in his face multiple times without looking at the amazing image he was bearing. After all, Juan Diego was just a poor Indian, a non-person, in his lordly bishopy eyes, he didn’t have time for rabble like that. But after a few attempts, the poor Indian managed to convince him, and the word of the miraculous tilma got out, and in the end, all of the Americas were converted to Christianity, not because of the Spaniards, but in spite of them!

The New World’s indigenous peoples are central to the revolutionary story
Source: The Desert Sun

It was a divine conversion of the indigenous peoples that forever shifted the momentum and character of this continent. It conveyed the divinely given message that Christianity didn’t particularly belong to the Spaniards just because of their heritage, it belonged to all peoples because of their goodness. Spaniards could be a bunch of racists, but the God who created the Indians in his image was not. The Indians had value, the Indians had a divine mission too. The Indians belonged. The Indians were well within God’s Divine Plan. And so is everyone.

That is one heck of a radical notion to shake the world with – universal human rights – universal human freedoms – universal human specialness – especially in the near-medieval world of 1517 Spain, which got all brutal and creepy because it was fresh from fighting the Crusades, which was a me-over-you battle with Muslims, and had nothing to do with virtue or conscience or anything in its ‘who’s bigger’ contest.

As you can tell from the narrative of the story, it doesn’t really matter if the miraculous event happened or not, because the fact that nearly all the Indians converted to Christianity despite the Spaniards providing every incentive not to, pretty much speaks for itself.

What is relevant is that they believed there was a miracle. And even conquered by Spaniards, they believed that they too were special, God’s sons. That is a powerful historic undercurrent to the Guadalupe miracle, which is why it intersects the political and the spiritual; which is why it’s revolution. And unlike the defining mythology of many other religions, this one happened pretty recently. The Catholic Church accepts this miracle ex cathedra (meaning they aren’t gonna change their minds) and gives it full weight and status in its credo.

What I like about it are the aesthetics of the image on the tilma, and the processions they create across the hemisphere. See?

Different images of Our Lady of Guadalupe presented
Source: The Desert Sun

Aesthetically, I think the tilma’s one of the most amazing examples of artistic perfection I know of. I dare you — put some flowers up to the image — white cattelya orchids, roses, delphiniums, Queen Anne’s lace, tulips, hibiscus – any old flower in the world. Not one would not enhance the image, which to me is very mysterious because there aren’t any other kinds of art or decoration that do not have a few things that would not go with it. The aesthetic universality of the image may be why people respond to it. Any flower you put up next to it looks like it organically belongs there.

Another thing I like about the aesthetic image is that it looks alive. I went and saw it in Mexico City and the eyes of the image seemed to follow me, no matter where I moved in the cathedral. I felt I was in the presence of something, there was power in that image.

The processions are as important as the image.
Source: The Desert Sun

But these are just circumstantial signs and aren’t the important thing. What is important is the impact the image has on people – in Mexico City, people will walk on their knees through glass sharded streets to demonstrate their devotion for miles and miles. It’s a very alive thing and it animates what people do and how they will act. It literally entices people to act.

But it also is an interesting reflection of the ritual of revolution. You see all these thousands of people in the streets following the statue, and it is obviously an ritualized reenactment of some great event that brought people to the streets and transformed them. In that regard, it resembles a democratic revolution, though in religion, the change is from within the individual persons rather than their exterior political body.

Either way, though, it’s strikingly revolutionary.