OK, Friends, Here is the rest of what I wanted to write two days ago but ran out of time to do so.

First, the monkey hit again.  Members of our community and workers are not careful enough to close and lock the nearby door to the dining room.  The monkey has experienced remarkable "success" and will keep returning until we thwart him (or her).  To be continued!

In the last three days I have received news of the deaths of three friends, one who is a Jesuit three years younger than me.  He and I studied together for four years in Toronto while preparing for ordination. (1969-1973)  He gave six years of his early priesthood to our mission in Uganda, the nation just to the west of us in Kenya, and then went back to Omaha to establish a school for young, pre-adolescent boys of African-American background.  The school turned out to be a great success, I am told.  Just last October he discovered some skin cancer.  It spread rapidly and became too established for chemo to make a difference.  He died a week ago last Saturday in great peace, with his family members gathered around him.  He had a great, great life!  Just too short!!  I felt a certain vulnerability in regard to myself (being three years OLDER than him!) and a sense of needing maybe to get on with writing this second book I am feeling nudged to do and not delay much longer putting on paper my ideas!  I find that once I sit to write, inspiration comes to me which I feel I don't have when I just look at my notes, stare out the window, and wonder where do I start, and will I be able to develop the idea, blah, blah, blah.  I must make time for starting it.

Today as I write I am thinking of one of the greatest influences in my life, John of the Cross whose feast day is today.  John wrote like no one else ever wrote.  A 16th century Spanish poet, a Carmelite monk and priest who lived only 49 years (1542-1591) but with such depth, such richness and intensity, he wrote among other writings three books on the ins and outs of the spiritual journey.  I took much, much from these three books for the book I wrote, which will be published very soon.  My aim was to make his writings easier to read and understand for today's public.  The book I took the most from is his "The Living Flame of Love," a four stanza poem about the Holy Spirit.  John spends numerous pages explaining the images he uses in that poem.  They are out of this world, so beautiful is his vision and way of expressing what we will all "look like" after God's Holy Spirit finishes with purifying us and opening up our divine possibilities, bringing us to a state and richness of life we can't even begin to imagine.  What I try to do in my book is to make that vision more understandable and to give a sketch of the journey over which God brings us along to such a glorious destiny.  Anyway, today is his day and he has been much on my mind.  His life story and especially how he suffered terribly during two occasions, when he was imprisoned  for about 10 months as a way to prevent him from bringing about needed renewal in the Carmelites of his time, and then at the end of his life how terribly he was treated by the religious superior in charge of the community where he spent the last weeks of his life.  What emerges from the former suffering is how it opened up such great, great spiritual depths in him, reflected in his poems.  The reader of his poems is so blessed to know something of these depths to which John's sufferings drove him, the depths of a human being and the depths of God.

I wanted last Friday to say something about Our Lady of Guadalupe and especially to talk about the pancho or cloak worn by the simple peasant, Juan Diego, that she appeared to in 1531.  I ran out of time and could not address it with all the other things I wrote in the previous posting.  Juan was an Aztec living under the humiliating control of Spanish conquerors who had just arrived in Mexico to gain greatly from the riches of that part of the world.  It was a disaster for the culture of his people, a time of corporate depression.  In the midst of that Juan, typical of those in his culture, has a stunning experience of the Mother of God.  She appears to him dressed as an Aztec maiden pregnant with child (who later was to be understood as the Savior soon to be born through these visitations of God via Mary).  She asks him to tell the local bishop to have a basilica built on the site of these apparitions.  He is most  afraid of this: so little is he, so exalted is the bishop.  He tries to avoid her but he cannot.  Eventually she strongly urges him to go to the bishop with her request and says she will make it abundantly clear to the bishop that Juan did not make up this message but is simply communicating her message at her request.  What he does not realize is that when he finally consents to go to the bishop and gains a hearing, there falls out of his pancho lap in the presence of the bishop a bunch of roses --in the great cold of December, at a significant altitude that would preclude their blooming at that time of the year--that could only come from one place, the place where the basilica is to be built.  And then what he does not realize is that as the roses fall out on the floor, there is seen by the bishop and all but Juan Diego an image of the Mother of God imprinted in the pancho.  He is unaware of what is causing them to gasp upon seeing what is in his cloak.  And with that, there begins the movement toward building the magnificent basilica that would serve as the place where God would lift up the spirits and spiritually strengthen these simple Aztecs who felt oppressed, crushed in spirit by the conquering Spaniards.  With that as background I want to explain some amazing details about this pancho with the image of Jesus' mother in the form of an Aztec, pregnant maiden.  Today it is mounted high up near the altar of the newer basilica at Guadalupe in Mexico City.  Millions comes there every year to honor it and to bring their life with its burdens to God through her.  I had the opportunity to be there two years ago last October to witness this place and learn of the story.

First, let me say that I personally know and have a special friend who lives in Farmington Hills, MI and when suffering MS she made a trip to Guadalupe in January of 1999 and asked in prayer for God's healing through the prayers of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  She struggled just to get to Mexico City and get off and on the bus, on and off the plane as well.  Less than 24 hours after she returned to her home in Farmington Hills, while waking from her sleep on the first morning after the return trip, she got out of bed and was shocked to find she could walk normally, that she no longer needed her walker nor any crutches.  And to this day she has been free from the MS and the terrible depression or discouragement that went with it.  Am I surprised by all of this?  Yes, but not to the point that I do not believe these amazing events happening.  I have read of some 67 similar stories of what happened to 67 people at Lourdes, France in the 1850s and later.  I know the story of what happened there too well to know that what happened is nothing less than miracles of healing and they leave you stunned at the power and proximity of God.  The data, confirmed by numerous doctors, some of them declared agnostics, are too overwhelming to doubt and explain away.

So let me tell you, if you are interested, something about the amazing nature of this pancho or tilma connected with the story of Guadalupe.  Ophthamologists have found that when the eyes of the maiden on this tilma are exposed to the light, the retinas contract and when light is withdrawn, the retinas return to a dilated state, just as with your eyes or mine.  The temperature of the tilma maintains a constant temperature of 98.6 F, the same as that of a living human body.  A doctor when using a stethoscope placed below the black band at Mary's waist heard rhythmic beats at 115 pulses per minute, the same as that of a baby in the womb.  No sign of paint has been discovered on the tilma.  From a distance of 3-4 inches from the image, one can see only the cactus fibers of the material.  In other words, the colors disappear.  Studies have not been able to discover the origin of the coloration nor the way the image was produced.  There are no signs of brush strokes nor any other painting technique.  Scientists at NASA confirm that the paint or coloration material does not belong to any known element on earth.  When the material was examined under a laser ray, it was shown that there is no coloration on the front nor the back of the cloth, and that the colors hover at a distance of .3 of a millimeter (1/100 of an inch) over the cloth, without touching it.  So the colors actually float above the surface of the tilma.

Going on . . . the rough material of the tilma has a lifespan of no more than 20-30 years.  Several centuries ago a replica of the image was painted on an identical piece of cactus and it disintegrated after several decades.  Still, during the nearly 500 years of this amazing miracle, the cloth with the image of Mary remains as strong as it was in the first day.  Science cannot explain why the material of the tilma has not disintegrated.

In 1791 muriatic acid was accidentally spilled on the upper right side of the tilma.  Over the following 30 days, without any special treatment, the affected fabric re-constituted itself miraculously.

The stars that appear on the mantel of Mary reflect the exact configuration and positions of the stars that could be seen in the sky on that day (December 9) in 1531 when she came to Juan Diego and to all of us.  In their total and proper places, the 46 most brilliant stars that can be seen on the horizon of the Valley of Mexico can be identified.

In 1921 someone concealed a high power bomb in a flower arrangement and placed it at the feet of the tilma.  The explosion destroyed everything around it, except for the tilma which remained intact.

Scientists have discovered that the eyes of Mary have the three refractive characteristics of a human eye.  In the eye of Mary (only one-third inch in size) miniscule human figures were discovered, which no artist could have drawn or painted.  The same scene is repeated in each eye.  Using digital technology the images in the eyes have been enlarged many times, revealing that each eye reflects the figure of the Aztec Indian Juan Diego opening his tilma in front of the bishop.  The size of this scene is 1/100th of an inch.

Finally, it is interesting to learn that in the Indian language Guadalupe means "to crush the head of the serpent," which refers to the Book of Genesis 3:15 and the Book of Revelation, chapter 12.  And the image on the tilma refers to a detail in the Book of Revelation, chapter 12, which says, "And a great sign appeared in heaven.  A woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet."  Lastly, the black band around her waist symbolizes pregnancy, suggesting God wanting Jesus to be born in the three Americas (north, central, and south), in the heart of each man and woman of the Americas. So in some mysterious way we all are born or birthed in Jesus by her.  John, chapter 19, implies this when Jesus gives her to us as our mother and each of us to her as her child.  In Jesus' dying words He encourages us to take her into our depths, to cherish her as our mother and to let God do miraculous things in us through her.  If we learn to be as Juan Diego--to be poor in spirit, we will realize the same kind of transformation, healing, and salvation in our lives.  Those who have faith in Jesus and this mystery experience the abiding friendship and protection of Mary and will feel a sense of being special to her.  To Juan Diego she said:
     
    My little child, the smallest of all, let nothing afflict you.  Do you not know that you are in my lap?  Am I not here, I who am your mother?

    So, I have shared with you something that either challenges faith or strengthens it.  In any case, I wanted to tell you this.  It means very much to me, not so much because of the details about the tilma but more because of this message from her to Juan Diego quoted above.  To me it says we are much more cared for by God, much more safe in God's hands than we realize, and we have no need to fear or be worried about our future because God in Christ has given each of us to her and her protection.  We are so blessed.

   I trust I will write another posting before Christmas.  Until then, goodbye and blessings on you in these concluding days of Advent.

Bernie Owens