Mexican Phoenix: Our Lady of Guadalupe: Image and Tradition Across Five Centuries

Mexican Phoenix: Our Lady of Guadalupe: Image and Tradition across Five Centuries Those looking for a thorough, researched study of the Guadalupe phenomenon can be thankful for this work that traces how the famous apparition has been viewed, and used, since the 16th century. Its objectivity is evident from the beginning where it is the initial documentation, rather than the Juan Diego story that confronts the reader. Most books on the subject are highly emotional, devotional or political. This one isn't and is a healthy counterbalance.

In the history of Catholic Marian devotion, the Mexican Virgin of Guadalupe has no rivals. When Pope John Paul II recognized her as patron of the Americas in 1999, he was merely building on a tradition stretching back from Pius XII and Pius X in the twentieth century, to Leo XIII in the nineteenth and Benedict XIV in the eighteenth. No other Marian image has been accorded comparable honours. The devotion is based on the story of the Virgin's apparitions to the Indian neophyte Juan Diego in 1531, and the subsequent appearance of her image, miraculously imprinted on the Indian's coarse mantle as he unrolled it to free the profusion of flowers that the Virgin had instructed him to take to a bishop. The mantle (tilma) is preserved in a basilica in Mexico City. The symbolic power of the devotion is impossible to exaggerate. It has been seen as the foundation of national identity, as a link between pre-Hispanic and modern times, as a rallying point uniting a racially complex society, and as a clear sign of divine favour. Historians, however, have often felt uncomfortable with the lack of any convincing proof attesting to the existence of a tradition linked to the story before the publication of Miguel Sanchez's Image of the Virgin Mary in 1648. This disturbing gap has led to a number of attempts to connect Sanchez's treatise with an indigenous oral tradition stretching back to 1531, specifically to the sixteenth-century Indian humanist, Antonio Valeriano, still widely believed to be the author of the native Nahuatl account: the Nican mopohua. But recent scholarship has established that there is no evidence to support such a tradition. More-over, a meticulous linguistic analysis of the Nican mopohua conducted lately has demonstrated not only that the text is written in standard seventeenth-century church Nahuatl, but also that there is direct linguistic proof of its dependence on the treatise by Sanchez, a conclusion that invalidates all previous attempts to find a common source based on an earlier native oral tradition. David Brading's definitive study, in Mexican Phoenix: Our Lady of Guadalupe, image and tradition 1531-2000, the result of at least three decades' research, is a detailed history of the tradition across five centuries based on a staggering range of primary sources, from theological treatises, chronicles and sermons, to occasional letters and polemical tracts. He laments the "wild, ill-considered arguments derived from a passionate determination to defend the historical reality of tradition", a determination most recently illustrated in the brave attempt by the Jesuit Xavier Escalada "scientifically" to prove the authenticity of a dubious codex, allegedly dating from 1548, which depicts Juan Diego and the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and is adorned by suitably apt contemporary signatures. "Within the context of the Christian tradition," writes Brading, it would have been "rather like finding a picture of St Paul's vision on the road

British historian David Brading offers an exquisite new approach to the tradition of Our Lady of Guadalupe in a masterpiece resembling Jaroslav Pelikan's Jesus Through the Centuries. While controversy has surrounded the historicity of Juan Diego and Guadalupe in the past decade, Brading offers a thesis that invites us to move beyond "probable fact" to the meaning of the Guadalupe event in the course of Mexican history.Guadalupe represents more than a historical episode, and the expression of Mexican identity she embodies requires a study that furthers the reflection on the meaning she has represented to the Mexican people throughout the centuries. The scandal surrounding the former abbot of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which contributed poorly to the understanding of what Guadalupe means to her people, reduced faith and identity to mere scientific fact. Science ought to be but a single angle of interpretation to the cult that has always meant much more than "corroborated evidence for the supernatural." Brading offers a way to move beyond the debate centered on declarations and counter declarations of the veracity of scientific fact, by contemplating the significance of Guadalupe from the heart of Mexican faith and history.This book is not an easy read, not exactly the pastoral manual on all things related to Guadalupe either. The uninitiated reader will not find the answers to all his or her Guadalupe questions easily. Both the theological and historical language used is largely for experts; nevertheless, if one manages to plow through the hermeneutics and the references to Byzantine iconography of the initial chapters, one will find the second half of the book most illuminating, particularly the post independence treatment of Guadalupe, which has not been as thoroughly studied as the colonial period.Mexican Phoenix is an exploration of the evolution of the Mexican psyche -- its need to affirm its identity and uniqueness, its search for symbols and authenticity. The key is found in the collection of works that Brading has used to support his claims, panegyric sermons and other treatises used in different periods of Mexican history to "exalt the singular Providence which distinguished their country," especially those published in the 18th century at the height of Mexican patriotism on the threshold of independence.Despite the numerous books and theories on the Guadalupe apparitions and all the arguments that have fueled the debate over this event for centuries, Brading's new opus offers an elegant and comprehensive integration of the elements that have comprised this debate, both because of its historical thoroughness and its theological insight, Few historians have succeeded in unraveling the theological implications of the Guadalupe event with such skill. The transformation and process of the cult speak not only of the course of Mexican history but also of the evolution of its religiosity, in a way few other symbols can.Perhaps Brading

According to Brading, the "purpose of this book is thus to illuminate the sudden efflorescence and the adamantine resilience of the tradition of Our Lady of Guadalupe." (11) The study, however, reads more like and intellectual historiography of Guadalupan ideas and controversies over the past five centuries. The method of the book is essentially that of an intellectual history. Social historians will not enjoy this book as much as, say, theologians and those interested in literary critique and historiography. What makes this historiography interesting is that the author is able to incorporate the historiographical tendencies in the field while simultaneously inserting his own interpretation of the events. In other words, the theological and historical debates surrounding Guadalupe evolved in accordance with the social and political structures. In the end, the reader emerges not only with an understanding of the debates but also the author's analysis of the literature and its history.By far, this is one the most enjoyable books that I have read on Guadalupe. Brading is fair and discusses the historical literature in context. Impressive research skills and highly readable! Highly recommended.