Mexico and Guadalupe

I started to think back to when I was first captured with the Madonna or also known as Virgin de Guadalupe. Not being raised Catholic but a true lover of ethnic folk art, and of the history behind this art, I have learned on my own about the saints or santos. I love the Santa Fe Folk Art Museum and saw their wonderful collection of santos, carved wooden Madonna and other saints- fabulous!

As I sat in my living room this morning thinking about my blog and sharing the fasination of this iconic woman, I look across my living room and there -big and bold- was my painting of the Madonna by Migel Martinez. 

I remembered back to when I first saw this painting...

Many many years ago, Mark and I where coming back from a doll show in Santa Fe, we stopped in Taos at a road side small Mexican restaurant for lunch. We sat down and across the room was a painting of a Madonna. You know how art is, when it speaks to you it just does. I kept staring at this painting and finally said something to Mark...I said even it is $500 I just have to have it!! I got up and walked across to this magical painting, looked at the price and came back to the table and said to him "add another zero to that"! yikes! Needless to say we saved and saved and a year later came back to the gallery and purchased my precious painting! It has been many many years that it has hung in my livingroom and I still look at it and love it!

 ...So these Madonnas and santos could be an entire other topic...so back to Guadalupe and Mexico.

As Mark and I were walking around Cozumel we happened upon this "graffiti" of this Guadalpue- beautiful!!

So, I would love to share with you the story of the Virgin de Guadalupe...and no matter what your beliefs, I think you will find the images beautiful because they in themselves are art and made from the heart.

 

In 1531 a "Lady from Heaven" appeared to a humble Native American at Tepeyac, a hill northwest of what is now Mexico City. 

She identified herself as the Virgin Mary and made a request for a church to be built on the site, and submitted her wish to the local Bishop. When the Bishop hesitated, and requested a sign. She sent her messenger to the top of the hill in mid-December to gather an assortment of roses for the Bishop. 

After complying to the Bishop's request for a sign, She also left  an image of herself imprinted miraculously on the native's tilma, a poor quality cactus-cloth, which should have deteriorated in 20 years but shows no sign of decay 478 years later and still defies all scientific explanations of its origin.

Her message of love and compassion, and her universal promise of help and protection to all mankind, as well as the story of the apparitions, are described in the "Nican Mopohua", a 16th century document written in the native Nahuatl language.

The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated on December 12th. In 1999, Pope John Paul II, declared the date of December the 12th as a Holy Day for the whole continent. 

During the same visit Pope John Paul II entrusted the cause of life to her loving protection, and placed under her motherly care the innocent lives of all children.