Newsletter of the District of Asia

 January - February 2000

Editorial
"Know and understand well, you the most humble of my son, that I am the ever Virgin Holy Marie, Mother of the True God for whom we live, of the Creator of all things, Lord of heaven and the earth."
Our Lady of Guadalupe to Blessed Juan Diego, December 9, l531

 

T MIGHT appear strange to begin this I new year with comments on the apparition of Our Blessed Lady of Guadalupe, an apparition which took place in 1531 in Mexico. However, when one considers it attentively, this apparition is one which fills us with deep hope. After talking about it in December - the feast is on December 12 I came to realize many things. Firstly, few people really know about it. Secondly, the miracles of the cloth and of the eyes are truly astonishing, and still ongoing today. Thus the Image has many similarities with the Holy Shroud. Thirdly, there are great links with Fatima, too. Fourthly, it is a beautiful heavenly answer to the ecumania raging now in Urbe et Orbe (Rome and the world). Fifthly, it is also a direct refutation of Vatican II's decree on Religious Liberty urging the separation of Church and State.

In the following pages you will read the full story of the event in the oldest recorded text, the Nican Mopohua (or Huei Tlamahuitzoltica, if you prefer). You can also see the verdict of science, especially ophthalmology, on this miraculous image. No need then to dwell on these at this point. Let us rather explain some other points first.

GUADALUPE AND FATIMA

HE core of the Mexican apparition is the revelation of Our Lady's Motherly Heart for a very recently discovered country and a perplexed Bishop, Bishop Zumárraga. The Bishop did not know what to do with the Aztec tribes engaged in continuous bloody wars with each other. The Spaniards had arrived a mere ten years earlier, and it was already very difficult to draw the natives to the truth of "the white men", more so when the white man was not always following exactly the religion of the white man... Bishop Zumárraga prayed to the heavenly Mother who perpetually helps, to Her who never abandoned anyone. And the Mother heard the cries of a prince of the Church. The prayers of Bishops are always weighty before God.

At Fatima, Our Blessed Lady revealed Her Immaculate Heart. At Guadalupe, her Motherhood.

T Fatima, Our Blessed Lady revealed Her Immaculate Heart. At Guadalupe, her Motherhood. These are obviously the same. Is not the mother, the 'heart' of the home? The concerns of the Immaculate Heart of such a Mother are always the same: saving souls, bringing them to the grace of Her Son, and to the heavenly glory hereafter. "The Lord Will give grace (here) and glory (in heaven)" Ps 83, 12. Has She not promised the conversion of Russia at the simple prayer of the Pope? In Guadalupe, there was no promise; there was no need to ask for the right prayer: it was already there. As a result there was an immediate answer "far exceeding what one could have thought or understood - superabundanter quam petimus aut intelligimus" (Eph. 3, 20). Here, we have a tremendous boost for our hope and trust in the Immaculate Heart's promise to convert Russia and bring peace to the world. "He (the Pope) will do it, but it will be late"(Our Lady of Fatima, July 13, 1917).

HE result of the apparition was, literally, the creation of a new nation, and a strongly Catholic one. Mexico, as it is known today, is a social entity thanks to the visitation of Our Blessed Lady in 1531. The civilization of the Aztecs was one who honored blood-thirsty gods. Human sacrifices were part of their rituals. The victims of these sacrifices were most frequently slaves or prisoners of war, and the methods of immolation were frightening in the extreme. The need for numerous victims whose blood would prevent the sun-god from stopping its course justified the continuous neighboring wars. The bloody hecatomb was actually a horrific inversion of the Christian sacrifice, in which the blood shed by the hapless victims was held to redeem the life of a god, and the continuous application of this human sacrifice was regarded as a solemn duty for the welfare of the people. Thus, in 1487, at the inauguration of a major temple in Mexico, the emperor sacrificed 20,000 warriors to the god of rain and of vegetation Add to all this the ugliness of the idols, for instance Coatlicue the Aztec `mother of god', and one begins to have an idea of the situation in Mexico in the early 1500s.

"The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen" (Is. 9, 2). Our Lady came, the Mediatrix of graces, the of Heavenly light. "Behold, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant leaped in my womb leaped with joy" (Lk 1, 44). This is also true of Mexico. As you will read in the next pages, as soon as the news of the apparition spread out throughout the land, the people flocked to Mexico to see the marvels and to embrace the religion of "the Mother of the True God". Hatred for one another was replaced by charity, errors by truth, darkness by light. 909'0 of the 10 million inhabitants were converted in less than 10 years - 9,000,000 conversions! We can surely call that a triumph of the Mother of God. The point I come to is this: if our Blessed Lady accomplished such a triumph of grace in Mexico, then She can do it again in Russia and in the world! Moreover at Fatima, She did promise that She would do it under the well-known conditions. These are past historical facts that should fill us with tremendous hope for future events.

GUADALUPE AND ECUMENISM

"I am the ever Virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the True God", she said to Juan Diego at the very first apparition, in December, thus alluding to the false gods dominating the land. This is a distinction which our modern ecumenists, bishops at their head, are refusing. For example, a New Age book has been published recently called "The 9 faces of Christ" in which the author attempts to prove that Christ was actually initiated into all the great religions. Sheer blasphemy. But, as you can read, further in this issue, in the summary of what the Federation of the Asian Bishops Conferences is saying, they believe that "it is an unavoidable truth that the Spirit of God is at work in all the traditional religions", that all the religions contain already or lead to Christianity. No matter what god you ,worship, they are saying, Ganesh, Shiva, Buddha, or Allah, all these are different names for Our Lord Jesus Christ! They are I all the same God!

HIS is not the message of our Lady of Guadalupe, "Mother of the True God". And to prove it, she converted from shocking paganism to the Church of the True God, Catholicism, 90% of the natives of Mexico. They left their superstitious worship for the First Commandment and the true Sacrifice of the Mass, abandoned their awful idols for the beauty of the Immaculate Queen of Heaven, and replaced their errors by the revealed truth. "Churches, monasteries, convents, hospitals, schools and workshops sprang up all over the country in the wake of this phenomenal missionary conquest, In 1552 the University of Mexico now the largest in the world) was established by papal and royal decree and placed an an equal footing with the celebrated University of Salamanca in Spain. New episcopal sees were founded, and before long Catholic Mexico was sending native-born missionaries abroad, especially to Florida, California and far-off Japan, where their glorious martyrs, St. Philip of Jesus and his Companions, suffered for the Faith in 1597" (The Wonder of Guadalupe, by F. Johnston, 1981, p.58).

GUADALUPE AND THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

INALLY, as in his book "They have uncrowned Him" Archbishop Levebvre sadly observed that the fruits of Vatican II's decree on religious liberty was the secularization of all the Catholic States, on the contrary, the fruit of the apparition of Our Lady in 1531 was, as we have detailed here above, a full Catholic civilization, a society openly subject to the sweet yoke of Christ the King, Son of the Virgin Mary.

ET us conclude with a beautiful prayer composed by Pope John XXIII in 1960: "Hail, Mother of the Americas, Heavenly Missionary of the New World! From the sanctuary of Tepeyac, for more than four centuries you have been the Mother and Teacher of the Faith to the peoples of the Americas. Be also our protection and save us, O Immaculate Mary. Aid our rulers, stir up a new zeal in our prelates, increase the virtues of our clergy, and preserve forever our Faith. In every home may the holiness of the family flourish, and in the shelter of the home may Catholic education, favored by dour own benign glance, achieve a wholesome growth."

ET us apply this prayer to the whole Church so in need of "the ever Virgin Holy Mark Mother of the True God for whom we live, of the Creator of all things, Lord of heaven and the earth".

ET us pray that Our Blessed Lady of Fatima will renew during this year of the jubilee before our own eyes the marvels She did perform in Mexico. May her Immaculate and Motherly Heart triumph, may She be the Queen "of those who are deceived by erroneous opinions, or whom discord keep aloof, and call them back to the harbor of truth and unity of faith" and thus, lead every one to her Son and His Catholic Church so that our modern countries may proclaim "with one cry from pole to pole: . Praise to the Divine Heart that wrought our salvation, to It be glory and honor forever"

God bless you.
Fr. Daniel Couture
District Superior


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