July 13, 2017
The Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe can be found in the north of CDMX next to a number of other older churches and buildings (hence the name “the village.”)
It is a national shrine near the hill where the Madonna of Teypeac is believed to have appeared to a young man, Juan Diego, in December 1531. The Marian apparition was miraculously fluent in Aztec and suggested a church should be built in her honor. The youngster informed the bishop whose documented incredulity I share. So she came to the boy again, and instructed him to pick some roses in winter, which he did, carefully wrapping them in his mantle. When he showed them to the bishop, Mary’s face and figure had magically imprinted themselves onto the cloth. That’s the gist of the story – the long version is a comedy of errors that would have made Shakespeare proud. I believe she appeared 5 or 6 times, even intercepting the boy when he had to take a detour.
That’s the past. In the presence, 2002 to be precise, Juan Diego was canonized under the name Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin. And the Basilica, replacing the older church in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe which is sinking into the ground, is something to behold. I was not surprised to hear that the world’s third most visited religious site, containing the shrine with his mantle, sees 20 million visitors annually. (The numbers I read for the capacity of the building went from 10.000 to 50.000. Don’t know which number is correct, do know the church is very, very large.)
The building was designed by the same architect who built the phenomenal Museum for Anthropology, Pedro Ramirez Vazquez. He died 4 years ago and was a complicated figure when looking at his politics (details in link below.)
The modern structure, almost industrial in shape, dimension and building materials, provides an interesting contrast to the baroque, gold-studded church next to it.
The interior lamps struck me as interesting abstractions of the tale of flowers.
The devotion felt inside, in both old and new church, and the authenticity of faith in the faces of the pilgrims, however, are moving.
Also moving are the walkways (!) – all four of them – in front of the shrine. It dawned on me that they probably need these things otherwise known from airport corridors to make sure that no-one kneels in front of the tilma for a long time and everyone else is left to wait. But theoretically you could go back and forth gently propelled forward under a piece of cloth that has meaning for millions.
The harshness of the building’s outline is softened by a huge plaza through which you approach the Basilica, filled with the faithful and punctuated by many a young person traversing the extent of the space on their knees.
The space is surrounded by large stations of the cross, which I rather liked in their simple elegance.
A large edifice on the plaza has sort of a theatre where mechanical puppets rotate and play out the meeting between the peasant and the Madonna. I found the childlike version of the play echoed in the sermons that you can hear hourly in both the old and the new church – the tape-recorded sermon sounds like someone reading a book to 5 year-olds. Voice shifts included.
A separate chapel invites families to bring their children for baptism, and if you are so inclined you can just stand in front of a blessing-distributing priest on a stage, thurible and all, on the plaza.
The old church is still open for visitors, would not want to be in there during the next earthquake, though.
And then there are the vendors –
And a (coincidental?) commentary on it all, located right at the corner of the whole compound….
Here is a link to a documentary trailer about the miracles.
