Marian Musings, Part VIII

When Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred-ninety-two, his patron - the Spanish monarchy - no doubt hoped the voyage would expand its empire. And he himself hoped the enormous dangers he took on might return profits from the spice trade that could develop with India should he succeed in finding a sea passage to that land. But Columbus' venture was about much more, and modern educators are guilty of malpractice when they depict him as a Machiavellian out to exploit people he would encounter.

A middle-aged man does not set off across an uncharted ocean in three wooden vessels of questionable seaworthiness, not knowing exactly where his destination even is, unless his spirit is fired by things grander than a long-odds chance at commerce.

Columbus was a devout Christian who wrote about the faith, felt duty-bound duty to introduce indigenous populations to it, and, unlike most sailors, refrained from swearing... His first expedition's largest ship, the Santa Maria, was named after Jesus' mother... While at sea his crew sang evening vespers, and each time they turned the half-hour glass to keep track of time, they recited: "Blessed be the hour of our Savior's birth / blessed be the Virgin Mary who bore him / and blessed be John who baptized him"... After being shipwrecked on Christmas morning on the north coast of present-day Haiti, he established a settlement and named it La Navidad ("the Nativity") before sailing back to Europe in the remaining vessels.

Christopher Columbus died still believing the lands he had reached were the eastern fringes of Asia. It was those who came after who realized this was an unknown New World, one whose continents would eventually be named after another Italian-born explorer, Amerigo Vespucci. Their early ventures writ large are a topic for another time, however, for the focus of today's post centers on what happened in one particular location a quarter-century after Columbus passed away.

*     *     *     *     *

In 1519, Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortez arrived at the Yucatan Peninsula and became the first European to set foot in what is now Mexico. By then the Aztec Empire was two centuries into its domination of that part of the world and its culture was notoriously violent, with human sacrifice - including child sacrifice - serving a central role.

The sacrifices were carried out frequently and often done by the tlamacazqueh (priests) cutting the living victims' hearts out of their chests; other times, the more "humane" method of decapitation was employed. The tlamacazqueh ate the hearts of the victims and sometimes wore their skins as costumes.

With conquistadors arriving in waves, the numbers ultimately favored the Spaniards and the battles between them and the Aztecs were brutal and bloody to an extent they never saw coming. Afterwards, getting Aztec people to adopt the beliefs and customs of those who had shown themselves savage enough to conquer even their warriors was a seemingly impossible task.

When Christian missionaries arrived in the conquistadors' wake and spoke of a god who was loving and merciful, your everyday Aztec knew the missionaries came from the same country as the conquistadors and saw no reason to trust them. Early attempts to evangelize met with determined resistance.

One of the Aztecs who was receptive had been born circa 1475 and named Cuauhtlatoatzin (Talking Eagle). As an adult he adopted the "Spanishized" name Juan Diego and regularly walked from his home to a mission station to receive religious instruction and perform religious duties. The route of his walk took him past Tepeyac Hill, which is today surrounded by Mexico City.

While making his commute in the early morning hours of December 9, 1531, Juan Diego encountered a beautiful young woman who spoke to him in his native language and identified herself as "Mary, mother of the true God from whom all life has come." She instructed him to ask the bishop, on her behalf, to construct a church atop the hill.

The acting bishop, Juan de Zumarraga, was a not-yet-consecrated Franciscan of Basque lineage from northern Spain. When Juan Diego told him about his encounter with the woman and the request she asked him to relay, de Zumarraga was understandably skeptical and told him to come back another time.

Mary appeared to Juan Diego on his return home that afternoon, at which time he reported his lack of success and claimed that he was of too low a station to act on her behalf, but she insisted he was the correct person and asked him to repeat the task.

When he did so the following day, December 10th, de Zumarraga did not rebuff him but instead asked him to bring some sign of proof next time. Mary appeared again on that afternoon's return home, and when he told her of the bishop's request, she responded by saying she would provide a sign the following morning. Unfortunately, when December 11th dawned, Juan Diego's uncle was extremely ill so he stayed home to tend to him.

On December 12th his uncle was still sick but noticeably better, so he opted to resume his daily trip. Not wanting to be delayed getting to the station (where he intended to request prayers for his uncle) and embarrassed by having seemingly "skipped" December 11th, he chose an alternate route around Tepeyac Hill in the hope of avoiding a fourth encounter.

He did not succeed, however, for Mary appeared and (pardon my vernacular) basically asked "what gives?" After hearing his explanation and assuring him that his uncle would be fine, she asked Juan Diego to go to the top of the hill and collect what was there.

What he found were blooming Castilian roses, a cultivated species unknown in Mexico that would have been out of season in December anyway. He gathered them in his tilma (a cloak made of agave cactus fiber) and transported them to the mission house, where he presumed they would serve as the promised proof.

When he opened the tilma in front of the bishop, the roses cascaded to the floor and the bishop reacted with awe - not only because he knew they should not be there and not be blooming, but because a large and stunning image had been imprinted on the underside of the tilma, unbeknownst to Juan Diego.

Up to now it might be easy to dismiss this as a fanciful tale of fiction. But we can't, for what's described above is just the tip of the iceberg.

*     *     *     *     *

Although agave fiber decomposes within 15 to 25 years, Juan Diego's tilma survives incorrupt to this day, 494 years later, despite a notable lack of preservation efforts having been made.

For its first 115 years the tilma was kept in the open air and subjected to soot, dust, incense smoke, candle smoke, candle wax, insects, moisture, touching, and who knows what else. If anything, that should have caused it to decay in less than the usual 15- to 25-year span; however, when it underwent its first scientific examination in 1789 (i.e., 258 years after after Juan Diego encountered Mary) the examiners were shocked to find that it showed no signs of decay at all, not even basic wear and tear.

Move forward to 1921, when the Mexican Revolution was in full swing and a terrorist tried to destroy the tilma by detonating a dynamite bomb hidden beneath it in a flower pot. The explosion broke windows in the church and other buildings as well, made ruins of the marble steps to the altar, and bent backwards this brass cross now known as Santo Cristo del Atentado - yet the tilma and thin plate of glass that was its only covering remained unscathed.

*     *     *     *     *

As stunning as the tilma's longevity and indestructibility are, the image imprinted on it is even more stunning, and that only starts with (cue the Shroud of Turin comparisons) science being unable to even speculate how the was image was made or what it is made of. There is no paint, no dye, no brush strokes, no sketch marks, no interwoven "other" materials. Instead, there is an image where none should be, colors and details where nature would place nothing but a blank surface of beige. And how breathtaking those details are!

The image is of a pregnant woman, with obstetric proportions indicating she would be about two weeks shy of her expected delivery date. That should cause eyebrows to raise when you consider that the image was imprinted 13 days before December 25th.

On her belly is the constellation Leo (a lion) and by her heart the constellation Virgo (a virgin) - which should cause eyebrows to raise when you consider that Mary was a virgin and her child Jesus was called the Lion of Judah.

Her hair is parted in the middle and worn loose below her mantle, which in Aztec culture was symbolic of virginity. Plus, she wears a black tie at her waist, which in Aztec culture was a noblewoman's maternity girdle. Thus, the image broadcast to natives the otherwise unthinkable concept of a virgin with child, and also broadcast that the child had authority simply by virtue of being conceived.

Also appearing on the virgin's tunic and directly overlying her womb is a four-petaled jasmine flower, which in Aztec culture symbolized divinity. Thus the image conveyed to natives that her child was actually a (the) god (God).

The image further shows the woman standing in front of and largely obscuring the sun, which in Aztec culture was the symbol of their chief god, Huitzilopochtli. Thus it conveyed to natives that their until-then exalted figure was being supplanted by the fruit of the virgin's womb.

All of which demonstrates that Aztecs would have swiftly grasped the Mother of God imagery that felt automatic even to non-Christian Europeans. But as you might have guessed, there's more.

*     *     *     *     *

That same image which communicated so well to people of the sixteenth century also communicates to us twenty-first century humans, in ways that could not have worked with our forebears.

The virgin is depicted draped by a blue mantle decorated with gold stars, which sit in the precise positions where the constellations would have appeared above Mexico City in the morning hours of the very day Mary appeared to Juan Diego - if they were viewed that day not from our vantage point of Earth but from the sun, a vantage point available only to God.

Further, her head is tilted forward at angle of 23.5 degrees, the precise angle at which Earth tilts toward the sun on its axis. Being forced to nod to the sun because of its gravity, versus feeling moved to nod to the Son because of his glory - could a comparison be more obvious, especially given the simple fact that Mary's head being tilted with eyes turned down projects submission and prayer?

Then there is something that only became possible to discern in the modern age of magnification: The realism of Mary's eyes. So stark are they that when renowned photographer Ivan Esther (an agnostic) was hired to photograph the image and zoomed close in on those eyes, he stumbled from the ladder and exclaimed: "She's alive!" Shortly afterwards, he became a Christian.

Mary's eyes are barely open, with ever so slight spaces under her drooping lids providing only a scant glimpse of anything that would be presumed to represent the eyes themselves. At first glance, they are almost imperceptible; a person looking at the tilma would be justified to assume there is nothing there for eyes at all, except a pair of minuscule, monochromatic dabs.

Under magnification, however, microscopic details spring forth. The pupils contract when light is shined on them, then re-dilate when said light is removed, and the Purkinje shift (a triple refection that occurs in the structure of living, human eyes but not on flat, dead, 2D images) is shown to be active. This has been confirmed by multiple ophthalmologists who have studied it, not all of whom are believers.

Also confirmed by ophthalmologists is the presence of a scene which appears on both eyes, and displays the exact proportions and inversions from one eye to the other that would occur when human eyes look upon something. The scene in the virgin's eyes contains 13 people - a figure that is especially noteworthy when you consider that tradition has long said 13 people were watching when Juan Diego opened his tilma in front of the bishop. Presumably, that microscopic scene on the tilma shows us exactly what living eyes in that location would have seen (did see) at the exact moment the image was created.

*     *     *     *     *

The image on the tilma is known as Our Lady of Guadalupe. The tilma hangs on a wall in this Mexico City basillica at the foot of Tepeyac Hill, near (if not at) the spot where Mary first appeared to Juan Diego. It is on public display and is the most visited pilgrimage site in the world.

After word of Mary's appearance and the miraculous image spread, millions of Aztecs converted to Christianity on a scale that was previously unthinkable and probably unprecedented. Other natives converted in the wake of the mass Aztec conversion, so that Christianity gained a powerful foothold in the New World, and, as we know, from there it only grew.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of the strongest evidences for God's existence that he has given us. It spoke directly to both of the cultures immediately present when it was first revealed, and likewise it speaks to modern cultures that are able to use science and technology to glean insights from it that sixteenth century people could not. Who knows what other secrets it holds, waiting to be unlocked in the years to come?

It shows that those of us who aren't Catholic should be open (dare I say wide open?) to Catholic claims that God uses Mary to draw humans to him, and that her role in salvation history is both active and integral.

Note: The prior posts in this series are as follows:
    Part I: Introduction
    Part II: The New Eve
    Part III: Genesis to Revelation
    Part III-b: The Ark of the New Covenant
    Part IV: Historical Perspective
    Part V: Perpetual Virginity
    Part VI: Prayer
    Part VI-b: Worship
    Part VII: Involvement and Femininity

A Carol Born

When it comes to carols, I have always found “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” to be especially poignant (if you're not familiar with it, you can listen to it here.)

It did not begin as a song, but as a poem written on Christmas morning by America’s greatest poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, more than 150 Christmases ago. At that moment in time America was torn apart and battling itself in the Civil War – a war that still stands as the one in which more Americans died than in any other.

When dawn broke that morning, Longfellow was despondent. During the war his son Charles had been horrifically wounded when a bullet passed through part of his spine, leading to a long and excruciating recovery. And as if that wasn’t dark enough, his wife Frances had died as a result of burns sustained when her clothes were set on fire by dripping sealing wax, which she was melting with the intention of using it to preserve some of their daughter’s trimmed curls.

But despite that sorrowful backdrop, as Longfellow sat in his Massachusetts home on Christmas and heard the ringing of local church bells, his faith in divine promise started to stir and he was moved to put pen to paper. The resulting poem was transformed into a hymn nine years later, when John Baptiste Calkin composed the music to which it was set.

The poem’s words absolutely speak for themselves. Since some of them are excluded from the carol we normally hear this time of year, here they are in their entirety:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

Winter Solstice

Here are some thoughts about the year’s coldest season on this, its first day:

I love how it begins with evergreen boughs on mantles, lighted trees in village squares, carols on the radio, and people knowing that life’s greatest joys come from giving rather than receiving.

I love its chilly mornings when fog clings to the surfaces of ponds.

I love sitting outside on those mornings drinking hot black coffee.

I love the memories of winter vacations from not too long ago, of Sarah trying to catch flakes on her tongue and of Parker shrieking with delight during his first slides down a tubing hill.

I love driving across California’s High Sierra between snow drifts so deep they soar above cars and turn roadways into tunnels of white.

I love walking through Appalachian forests that are barren of leaves but laden with snow, and therefore have the appearance of black-and-white photos come to life.

And finally, I love that I can spend a whole day outside in Florida without feeling the need to shower every hour.

So for those who curse the cold: Remember that every season brings beauty, so long as we stop to notice it.

That Christmas Feeling

 I published this post 15 years ago, when Sarah was a kindergartner and Parker was, like I said, "resting snugly in Erika's womb" ... Tomorrow she graduates from college, and he is now a freshman in high school. They obviously know the truth about Santa, and, more importantly, the real reason for Christmas. Although my marriage did not survive to the present, the friendship between me and their mother has  ... I think I will grin every time I re-read this post, so I'm re-publishing it today as we all go barreling into the last fortnight of Advent: 

As long as I can remember, I have spent the Thanksgiving-through-New-Year’s season feeling buoyant and hopeful. On December mornings like today’s, when the temperatures are below freezing and the grass is coated with frost, I have always found it easy to catch the Christmas spirit.

But even for people like me, the appreciation we feel for this time of year is increased many times over when we become parents. Watching our children’s faces light up with wonder, we remember how we felt at this time of year when we were kids. Surely, even the most jaded adult must have fond recollections of Christmas Past and hope that today’s tykes are enjoying Christmas Present.

When Sarah was two, I am pretty sure she remembered Christmas from when she was one, but I know she remembered it when she was three. That was the year we got a flat tire while driving to the annual Christmas Eve party for my extended family. It was dark and cloudy and we were stranded for some time on a rural road -- a circumstance that would usually lead to bad moods and quick tempers. But when the lights of an airplane tracking through the clouds became visible, I pointed to them and told Sarah it was Santa’s sleigh. Her face immediately lit up. She pointed at the lights and wiggled and shrieked to Erika: “Mommy! Mommy! It’s Santa! It’s Santa!” And a potentially bad experience was transformed into a golden moment that will never be forgotten.

Exactly one year later, when she was four, getting her to go to bed on Christmas Eve proved next to impossible. For what seemed like hours, she kept getting up every few minutes and running into our room, laughing and jumping and swearing that through her window she had just seen Santa’s sleigh in the sky. Then she started saying that she thought she heard reindeer on the roof. And she kept getting up and making these claims over and over and over again…

When she was five, we took her to Disney World on December 23^rd, and the Magic Kingdom was decked out in holiday splendor. After night fell, as we made our way down Main Street USA with Sarah on my shoulders, she broke into song and belted out “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.” Then artificial snowflakes started to shower down, blown from the tops of the storefronts, and the day came to a picture-perfect end.

The next night saw more classic, Christmas Eve moments. Sarah claimed she saw Rudolph’s nose in the sky on our way home from the annual party. Before bed she made a trail of cookies in our driveway to lead the reindeer to our door. At the end was a marshmallow snowman cookie, along with a note on which she wrote: “Rudolph only.”

Finally, inside our home on her own small table by the tree, Sarah left milk and cookies, and an unfortunately broken candy cane, out for Santa. We disposed of the food and drink before she awoke, and Erika was sure to leave cookie crumbs on the plate next to the empty glass. Erika also composed a thank you note from Santa to Sarah. We had already turned this into a tradition, and Sarah reveled in it again.

Sarah is now six. For the third December in a row she is rising before the roosters every single morning, opening her Advent Box and finding where the Elf on the Shelf has moved to. She is smart as a whip and I did not expect her to still believe in Santa last year, but now it is a whole year later and she continues to believe.

We have always told her that Christmas is to commemorate the birth of Jesus, and is about giving rather than receiving, and she seems to get it. Two years ago, when we told her that after opening her gifts she had to choose one to give away to the poor, she countered by asking if she could give away ten of her old toys rather than one of her new ones.

When Sarah was born, we actually said that we would not even do the Santa thing, specifically to avoid the dreaded conversation in which we would have to admit (there’s no delicate way to put this) that we have been lying to her all these years. Then Christmas came and we did the Santa thing anyway, and although I have some reservations, I don’t have any regrets when I watch her enjoy herself. Her excitement heightens mine and Erika’s, and I am serene in my confidence that she will look back on these days with happiness. After all, one of my fondest memories of Christmas Past is of the year my parents broke the news to me that Santa is not real. The memory involves a chalkboard, but that is a story I will share another time, perhaps another year.

The bottom line is this: I love Christmas to begin with, but I love it even more because of my little girl. Erika and I can not wait to keep making new memories with her and her little sibling, who right now is resting snugly in Erika's womb.

Never Forget

Today is the 84th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, so let us all pause and recall what happened eight decades ago.

The day after the bombing, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed Congress on December 8, 1941, to request a formal declaration of war. His speech was simulcast to the country at large via the radio. In it, he said:

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our secretary of state a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack…

Yesterday the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Wake Island.

And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island…

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves…

Always will be remembered the character of this onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory…

With confidence in our armed forces – with the unbounding determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.

Pearl Harbor was attacked because it was where the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet was headquartered. The bombing, which killed more than 2,400 people, began shortly before 8:00 on a Sunday morning.

Five of our eight battleships were sunk, the other three were badly damaged, and multiple other naval vessels were destroyed.

The majority of the American war planes based in Hawaii were destroyed as they sat on the ground.

In addition, most of the American air forces based in the Philippines were destroyed during the nighttime attack on that nation, which FDR also mentioned in his speech.

By crippling our Pacific defenses, the December 7th attack left us extremely vulnerable in the face of an aggressive enemy to our West – an enemy that had signaled its intent to rule the entire Pacific basin by subjugating other nations to its will.

This came at a time when we had not responded to the fact that Nazi Germany to our East had already declared war against us, had already brought most of Europe under its thumb, and had signaled its own intention to rule the world by way of an Aryan resurrection of the old Roman Empire.

Such circumstances would have spelled doom for the vast majority of countries throughout the course of history. With their foundations based on the accidents of ethnicity and geography, most countries would have simply surrendered; or, in a distinction without a difference, entered into “peace” negotiations under which they would have to accept the aggressor’s terms and after which the lives of their citizens would most certainly change for the worst.

But the United States is a nation based on ideals. Our foundation springs from the knowledge that there are things greater than us, things which are greater than the transient circumstances which exist on any given day. We have always found strength in the conviction that our nation exists to support and advance those greater things, to the benefit of people all over the world, and this sets the United States apart from all other nations in all other times.

Taking heed from FDR’s appeal to “righteous might,” reflecting what Abraham Lincoln earlier referred to as the “faith that right makes might,” the American people of 1941 summoned the invincible courage to rebuild and fight at the same time they were under fearsome siege. They did this despite the fact they were still suffering through an unprecedented economic depression that had started more than a decade before.

Let us pray that those qualities – that will to power and that unwavering belief in the sanctity of human freedom – have not been lost as new generations of Americans take the baton from the great ones which came before. For as has been said, those who forget the past will be forced to repeat it.

It would be shameful if history were to record that we squandered what was handed down to us by people like Larry Perry, and as a result we failed to transfer freedom’s blessings to our descendants... And since you probably don't know who Larry Perry is, I recommend you look here and find out. 

The Real Saint Nick

History provides many examples of actual people who have, over time, become so melded into the popular imagination that we tend to forget they were real. Saint Nicholas is one of them.

Born sometime around 280 A.D. in the town of Patara, in what was then part of Greece but is now part of Turkey, Nicholas was the son of wealthy parents who died when he was young. Having been raised as a devoted Christian, he spent his life using his inheritance to help those in need, and in addition to his charity he became known for harboring great concern for children and sailors.

Down through history, one particular story about his generosity has persisted. In those days, women whose families could not pay a dowry were more likely to die as spinsters than to get married. It is said that when Nicholas learned of a poor man who was worried about his daughters’ fates because he lacked money for their dowries, Nicholas surreptitiously tossed gold into the man’s home through an open window, and the gold landed in stockings that were drying by the fire. Much later, this inspired the modern tradition of hanging stockings by the chimney to receive gifts from Santa on Christmas Eve.

Nicholas became Bishop of Myra, a city on the Myros River near the Mediterranean coast of what is now southern Turkey. He was imprisoned during the anti-Christian persecutions carried out by the Roman Emperor Diocletian.

He was present at the Council of Nicaea (whose 1,700th anniversary was this summer) at which Christianity's fate hung in the balance due to the metastasizing belief in Arianism within the Church. It was at this council that Arianism was officially determined to be a heresy, and at which Nicholas famously confronted Arius face to face.

Nicholas is considered a saint by both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Based on the stories of his life, he is deemed to be a patron saint of orphans, archers, sailors, travelers, repentant thieves, the wrongly imprisoned, and many other categories of people. Churches were constructed in his honor as early as the sixth century A.D.

Today marks the 1,682nd anniversary of his passing, for Nicholas died on December 6, 343. His remains were buried in the cathedral church in Myra, which became a pilgrimage site. In 1087 many of them were moved to Bari, a seaside city in southeastern Italy, where they are still housed in this cathedral. Others are dispersed as relics in places throughout the world.

For generations now, kids and adults alike have used the names Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, and Saint Nick interchangeably, without giving it a second thought. But there was an actual Saint Nicholas, a decent man who is obscured by commercial renderings of Christmas. We should not allow that fact to be forgotten.

Note: The photo at the beginning of this post is of a window depicting Nicholas, taken this May at Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Tarpon Springs, Florida. This cathedral contains one his relics - specifically, a tiny bone fragment displayed in a glass reliquary at the front of the nave.