Adjutorium Nostrum +++ In Nomine Domini

Today's Catholic Exchange lead is titled "The Story of Guadalupe: Hope for Our Violent World". The author relates the bloody history of human sacrifice that was the tradition among most of the Indian tribes in what is now Mexico and Central America. Stories of the slaughter of thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) of victims, many of whom were children, to a variety of gods and goddesses horrify us and we wonder how any human being could treat another that way or believe that any "god" would demand the death of so many for its satisfaction.

In our modern day world we're still watching the inhumanity foisted upon largely innocent people by their fellow human beings and we're still reacting with horror and wondering how any human being could treat another human being in such horrific ways. Today, around the world, abortion, addictions (drugs (including alcohol and tobacco), sex, gambling etc.), slavery, persecution (ethnic, religious etc.), exploitation, and disease are our scourges, our human sacrifice and we do this to ourselves and each other as surely as the Indians committed their sacrifices on the high altar of the pyramids. There are none of these that do not have their basis in one way or another in our desires and lusts. We essentially sacrifice ourselves and other innocents by the thousands every year on our altars of greed and lust that are not much different than the bloodied stone altars of the Central American Indians but that we tend to disguise them with facades that attempt to make them something good and mask the evil that is truly there. (cf Isaiah 5:20)

So what does Our Blessed Mother have to do with any of this? She appeared to St. Juan Diego at a time when he and his people were under siege, not only from the Spanish invaders but from their own inhuman self-destruction. I have no doubt that while many Indians were killed by the Spanish and the diseases they brought with them, many more were killed by their own people over the hundreds of years that human sacrifice was practiced. Our Lady's appearance signaled hope for the Indians then, and continues to signal hope for us today. Hope that we may shine the light of Her Son, Jesus Christ, throughout the world that the human sacrifice will cease and our love for one another as He loves us will replace the distress, the violence, the separation from God that we ourselves are permitting.

May Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the unborn and of the Americas, lead us to your Son Jesus, that we may love as He loves.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!