This is Visiting Guadalupe

Today is a red-letter day in the world of my blog. Today I have posted my first video (see below). How bout that!?!?! Ok, enough self-promoting....

Yesterday, me and the fellas went to Our Lady of Guadalupe for the second time on our Mexican Immersion. The trip was much different than the first and it brought with it many more thoughts. I haven't been able to post on either until today, so without further ado: This is Visiting Guadalupe.


We left the house at about 9:30-- not a bad start. But, soon thereafter, we hit traffic. Lots of traffic. Welcome to Mexico City.

We sat and sat and sat... and we arrived to the Basilica at about 11am. Pretty bad for an 18-mile drive.

We then toured the museum, which was something that we couldn't do the first time we visited (as last time it was closed). Admittedly, I wasn't very impressed with the museum. It is quite large and it does have a lot of 16th-18th century art (of particular note are its oil paintings), and it does have two pretty amazing altar reredos... es. But, all in all, I was disappointed. One, because I couldn't take any pictures, even without a flash. And two, there was a phenomenal lack of information about the apparitions, about everything surrounding them, and about the meaning of the tilma image itself. All we saw were artifacts from after the apparitions.

A fellow seminarian astutely pointed out as he drew a contrast: "The entirety of Lourdes is centered around what happened before and during the apparitions. The 'after' speaks for itself. Here, there seems as though someone feels there is something to prove..." Ironically, the method to do so concerns everything that happened afterward, and not what happened before and during. I want to learn more about Guadalupe. Again, I turn to Padre Eduardo Chavez... wishfully.

{This cross, which you can see in the new cathedral at Guadalupe, is, as you can tell, very bent. A while ago-- I do not remember when-- someone tried to blow up the image. At the time, the image was directly above the tabernacle on the high altar in the old cathedral-- and someone placed a stick of dynamite on the altar in an attempt to blow up the image. The dynamite exploded. The candlesticks were destroyed and the crucifix seen here was bent-- but the image was unscathed.}

After the museum, I climbed up the Tepeyac Hill.

It is in this area that the apparitions took place. The gardens here are beautiful and very peaceful when there are not thousands of pilgrims (which is good to have, nonetheless) and, accompanying them, the many vendors. Honestly, Tepeyac Hill, while beautiful, reminds me of a theme park. I hate to say that, as this is holy ground. But, it is just so busy and commercial when there are people out and about. I can see this place as being heavenly when few are around.

So, I climbed up the Hill, which is easily done by taking the steps. At the top is a beautiful view of the city.

(While it is within the limits of Mexico City, Guadalupe/Tepeyac are on the north end. The hill faces south toward downtown). At the top of the Hill is a beautiful church with scenes of the apparitions inside of it. Again, there are a lot of pilgrims here, so staying around for long is not the best thing to do.

Instead, I went back down the Hill and found the diamond in the rough: la capella pocito (the small chapel).

There, it is quiet and Jesus is there and the small size of the chapel provides an opportunity for great intimacy with the Lord. That, and it is the most beautiful part of the entire Guadalupe complex-- second only, of course, to the Tilma. A couple families visited this chapel while I was there. They brought their kids, who knew to kneel and pray-- which was very wonderful to see. Interestingly, they knelt right next to me... They were quiet and, just before they left, the parents took a picture of the kids praying. And since they were so close to me, guess who was in the portrait!

If I were a parent and had the money, I could see bring my kids here like that. And if I were a priest, I wish I could have heard confessions in that chapel. At that moment, I felt like I was both.

{This is the giant Square at the bottom of the Hill around which all of the buildings rest. I'm not sure what that cement structure in the background is}

After the small chapel, I visited a couple more chapels-- these from the earlier days of Guadalupe: the former indian parish church, the former basilica, etc.

{This is the "Old Parish of the Indians"-- and inside...}

These too are beautiful, but in a simple way. And they are beautiful in that there is so much history here. One could spend quite a bit of time pondering the history of the place-- what had gone on in this same space, hundreds of years ago.

{The old cathedral and, attached, the old monastery}

Eventually, I found my way to the new cathedral. Here, the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe is one display for all to see.

{The new cathedral, built in the 1970s...}

The image is directly behind the altar, so you can see it from any part of the church.

Here, you can see it directly at the foot of the cross.

If you want to see it up-close, you have to go to the lower-level of the cathedral and take a ride on a moving walkway and look up. (This is so that pilgrims keep moving. Otherwise, there would be a traffic jam reminiscent of those in the city).

Here's a video of what you would see if you visited...

The time the it takes to travel on the moving walkway is nearly equivalent to a Hail Mary. Here is a more up-close video of the image:



I prayed for a while here and in the pews, as you might expect. In my first visit, that's where I spent most of my time. During this second visit, though, we were short on time-- and I had yet to purchase from the gift shop what I had promised everyone back home that I would get.


So, I went to the gift shop. Ahem, crowded gift shop. I shouldn't have been surprised, considering. But, I was. And I was also confused by the way things are purchased there. You can't just grab things off the shelves. You must point your selection to one of the assistants. They then pull your product from the shelf or from a back room. You then go to pay at a side "window"... and then your items are finally placed in your hands. I was lost.

And my time was up. So I returned to the group. We climbed back into our van. And two hours. TWO HOURS! later, we arrived back home.

Perhaps Our Lady can do something about the traffic here. In the words of Billy Crystal (in the Princess Bride), "It would take a miracle."

Maybe there will be a miracle when I visit for the last time in a couple of weeks.....