Collection: Our Lady of Guadalupe Crowned

The Crowning

Throughout the past centuries it would seem as though the Mexicans could never be satisfied with what they had done to honor their Senora. Indeed it was that we haven't done enough that prompted her devotees to solemnly crown their Immaculate Sovereign with a gorgeous diadem on October 12, 1895. The wealthier ladies of the nation vied with one another in holy competition to see who would contribute more precious jewels to adorn her crown. As expected, the anticlericals took advantage of the solemnity to criticize the church for such wasted extravagance, reechoing the never-fading complaint of Judas Iscariot, "Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor?" But the fact is that the poor love to honor their Mother and to make sacrifices in her regard. In answer to such objections Fr. Lee, the most renowned Guadalupan author, adroitly concluded, "If her enemies murmur because her crown is of gold, her children will add to it one of diamonds."

So intense was the Guadalupan fever around the time of the coronation that for a little while even the secular newspapers condescended to write a few words in praise of their country's Patroness. One such article that appeared in the daily journal _Gil Blas_ very beautifully summed up the mind of the nation: "All, whether believers or not, find something to love, and to love intensely, in the Virgin of Guadalupe. Against her in this land no man blasphemes. She is the ideal, the light that shines above our strife and our incredulity."

Yet, even as the glittering crown, on that momentous autumn day, was being lifted by the presiding archbishop above Our Lady's head, the violent forces of evil were at the same time secretly plotting her overthrow. Less than thirty years later, as the article on Padre Pro details, the bullet-ridden bodies of one hundred and sixty martyred priests, executed as enemies of the state, were a shockingly graphic result of that satanic conspiracy. Mysteriously, and for His own unfathomable reasons, that is the way it has always been with God Our Father. Whom He loves, those He chastises. It is a fact of history that out of the blood of the martyrs the Church was born " and from the blood of today's martyrs we hope the Church will be reborn to shine more glorious than ever.