Benedictine College, Kansas

Viva la Guadalupana!

I've had a long time tenderness for Our Lady of Guadalupe, but for the past six years she has been my constant companion in a more intimate way. My first academic interest was sparked while I was preparing a series of lectures on Mary in art which I was invited to give at the Princeton Theological Seminary. I was still working on a large mosaic of the Immaculate Conception for the chapel of the Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania, so naturally, I expanded the research I had done for that project to present to the seminary students the prototype of the Immaculate Conception. The image of Guadalupe fitted very nicely in this theme.

I read a good deal not only about the apparition but also about its historic context. I can recommend a number of authors and books on this theme: Our Lady of Guadalupe by Stafford Poole, Santa María Tonantzin Virgen de Guadalupe by Richard Nebel, Bernardino de Sahagún, first Anthropologist by Miguel Léon-Portílla, and any other book related to Nahuatl culture and the Conquista by the same author. I found at the library of the Seminary a facsimile of the Florentine Codex, a 16th-century ethnographic research study in Mesoamerica by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún which gave me a visual image of, as the title says, "The General History of the Things of New Spain", its people with their activities, its landscape, flora and fauna. Not only that, but as it was written in collaboration with Nahua elders and authors who were formerly his students at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, it gave me insight into their artistic style. I was also fascinated by the numerous original paintings by Mexican artists representing the image on the tilma and their influence on Iberian Marian representations of the Immaculate Conception.

In 2024 I was commissioned by a generous donor to make a mosaic of Our Lady of Guadalupe for the Hope Pregnancy Aid center in Grand Rapids, Michigan (see my previous blogs). I worked on this project in collaboration with my colleague and very talented mosaic artist, Samantha Holmes and we finished the installation at the end of October last year. While engaged with this project, by sheer chance, three days before their deadline for submissions, I found out hat the Benedictine College was running a competition for artwork for two spaces in the new library which is being built on their campus in Atchison, Kansas. I submitted for one of the spaces - two paintings on the life of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica, suggesting that perhaps they might like to see these done in mosaic. In response, I received a lovely email which I would like to share with you:

"Our selection committee loved seeing your past mosaic work, particularly the Immaculate Conception mosaic at Saint Francis University. We would really like to commission you to create a mosaic of Our Lady of Guadalupe for the Tower Room. We have a strong devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, particularly because of our emphasis on the new evangelization and her inspiration of our strategic plan to Transform Culture in America, the very plan which led to the building of this library."

There she was, speaking to me yet again across five hundred years of history and this time I heeded her call. On March 5 of this year Samantha and I were headed for Mexico City! We both felt the time had come to meet her in person. We paid our visit to the Basilica, as it happened, on the evening of Ash Wednesday.

The first four pictures are of the bronze bas reliefs illustrating the story of the Apparition occupying four corners on the lower level from where the image can best be seen, followed by images from the interior of the basilica. The next four pictures were taken on the pilgrimage camino that climbs the Tepeyac Hill to the Capilla del Cerrito de los Angeles which marks the location of the the first apparition to Juan Diego. The chapel was built in 1666 although the present building was begun ion 1740. Inside the chapel the side walls were painted in buon fresco by the Mexican artist Fernando Leal in 1947. Leal was part of the post-revolutionary artistic current known as Muralismo.

Bas relief of Juan Diego from the Nican Mo