In our Advent  reflections, last week we meditated on Mountains.  This week we will build on the mountains and connect them to Mary.  We will write about a mountain on Tepeyac and connect it to Mary’s Immaculate Conception.

First, we must define the Immaculate Conception.   The Church tells us that Mary, as a singular privilege because of her role as the Mother of God from the first moment of her conception was free from being touched by original sin.  She also was not touched by personal sin.  How can this be?  Some people would think, then she does not need a Savior.  But St. Bonaventure tells us that God can see all and thus can pre-emptively save people.  He can preserve them from falling into a hole, but he can also prepare them to recognize the rescue team.  This is what he did with Mary and is called prevenient grace as we hear in the Prayer over the Offerings at the Mass for the Immaculate Conception.  He also wants to help us to avoid the great fall as people whom He loves. So, I want to show these points through the lens of the Immaculate Conception:

1.       Grace builds on nature

2.      Key to Evangelization

3.      Three C(s) of the Legion of Mary – Conservation, Consolation, and Conversion

Grace Builds on Nature

Much of the information on this part of the article, which I am summarizing, comes from a must-read book by Joseph and Monique Gonzalez called Guadalupe and the Flower World Prophecy.  The Meso-American civilization existed from 2500 BC-600 AD and they built a culture which yearned for goodness like us all.  They started to see four-petaled flowers as a sign of the beauty of that goodness which connected them and the Divine.  This four petaled flower was known as a Quatrefoil. In it, there are the four points which symbolize an axis mundi or world axis.

Flower World (their version of Paradise)

  ↑
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Underworld

There are the four compass points (North, South, East, and West).   The center of the flower pointed to the place of blessing/grace.  This place of divine blessings would be filled with flowers and chirping birds chirping, which meant music.  They even built temples to reflect this fourfold flower world if you look from above at some of the Meso-America temples. Eventually the cultures would write poetry songs about this Flower World.  It would be communicated orally from generation to generation because this Flower World was the goal that was put in the hearts of much of the Meso-American culture.

Then in the 600s, there was a group who built upon this culture and spoke Nahua.  They continued to pass down these writings and songs of previous cultures-the Olmecs, Mayan, and Teotihuacan. So truth was found in flower songs and passing on this truth was detrimentally important.  So much so that as Joseph and Monique Gonzalez tell us in their book:

The Nahua took the performance of these songs and dances with extreme seriousness.  It was noted that if a drummer made a mistake and beat something out of time, if a dancer missed a step, or if a singer made a mistake, the unfortunate performer would be led away and executed the next morning (Guadalupe and the Flower Prophecy, p. 82)

One of these songs from the Nahua was called the Cuicapeuhcayotl in which there is a singer looking for flowers.  The hummingbirds show the singer where to find the flowers (on a mountain).  He gathers these flowers in his tilma and shows them to Lords and Princes.  This sounds just like Guadalupe, but there is a twist.  The singer in the Cuicapeuhcayotl song is still not allowed into the Flower World because he is unworthy (due to sin).  So, the Nahua song ends in tragedy.

But Grace builds on nature.  As it says in the second reading, “In him we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things” (Eph 1:11).  The Nahua people sung this song for hundreds of years!  Then in 1531, this same song is played in the life of Juan Diego to the point where even Juan Diego recognizes this and says, “Is this the place that my ancestors spoke” when Our Lady of Guadalupe appears to him.  As the Guadalupe story goes, Our Blessed Mother arranges miraculous flowers (not touched by evil or decay) and puts them in Juan Diego’s tilma.  He brings them to the princes and lords of the church and when the flowers fall from his tilma, what do they see? 

 They see a woman who entered the Flower World (you can see she is covered in 4-petaled flowers) and so is found worthy to enter.  Why?  Because SHE IS WITHOUT SIN!  She is the Immaculate Conception!  She does enter into paradise, or should I say, Paradise enters into her.  This is why she is looking down at Jesus in her womb in the image.  The natural song the Meso-American were taught was blessed with grace.  God had been preparing the Meso-American cultures for the Immaculate Conception and in this, the Lady of the Immaculate Conception under the title of the Our Lady of Guadalupe brought about great grace for these people.

Tying All of This Together

 The natural traditions were graced with fulfillment as God preserved Mary from sin while simultaneously preparing the Meso-American culture of the Nahua to recognize this grace.  Grace builds on nature.  This Flower World Prophecy shows the key to Evangelization.  You take people where they are, but you do not leave them there.  You bring them to God, to the flowers of truth and repentance. It is with this methodology, and because of this tilma and song over 10 million people converted to the Faith. Why did they convert?  It was because they conserved tradition.  They sung the Flower World song.  The natural version ended in tragedy, but this was God telling them, as our responsorial song says, “to sing a new song unto the Lord.”  Once they were able to sing this new song unto the Lord, they found the Lord and came into the fullness of His church.

Conclusion

Mary was the grace of the Flower World prophesy and the Old Testament in the Immaculate Conception.  God prepared the Jews covenantally, but also prepared the Meso-Americans with beauty and musically.   Mary was the key to Evangelization.  Entrance into the Flower World because of the Mezo-American culture converted many.  In her we see that allowing God to make you worthy and following his promptings to be preserved from sin can prepare for the great grace of Evangelization. Mary also shows the power of living in grace, not in sin which brings about a conservation of tradition, consolation in failures, and conversions of grace.  Let us learn and live the lesson of the Immaculate Conception: Preservation from sin leads to preparation for grace.  A grace which is a call to Heaven, by way of the flowers of truth, repentance, and sanctity.  May we follow these flowers to allow the grace of the Flower World or the Garden of Heaven to enter our lives so we can have Peaceful Hearts, Zealous Hearts.   

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and St. Juan Diego, pray for us and lead us to the Sacred Heart of Jesus!

Click here for the homily the article is based upon and then click on St. Juan Diego's tilma. 

Click here for a copy of Guadalupe and the Flower World Prophecy by Jose and Monique Gonzalez.