FEAST OF OUR LADY

OF GUADALUPE -

THE NUMBERS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my few thoughts is, “Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe - The Numbers.”

Today, December 12, about 3 million people will go to Tepeyac, Mexico, for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  It’s a feast day that starts with the first revelations of Mary to Juan Diego, a Christian Native American on December 8^th - going further to December 12, 1531

Around 20 million people make a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine per year.

What about other shrines and other numbers.

Lourdes, France  has about 8 million per year.  Apparecida, Brazil gets about 6.6 million people per year. Fatima has about 4.5 million per year - this year obviously more - with its 100^th Anniversary.

Guadalupe is the largest and best attended Marian Shrine in the world.

In Hinduism, we have  the largest holy place in the world. It’s dedicated to Ayyappan. It’s in Southern India - in the Kerala region - which is also the most Catholic area  in India.  This shrine gets about 40 to 50 million pilgrims  a year. This happens mostly in late December and early January. The key god is Ayyappan - who is a war god and the god of growth. Women in their child bearing years don’t want to go in pilgrimage to this place - because Ayyappan is celibate.

CONVERSATIONS

Start conversations about the holy places you’ve been to.

I haven’t been to Salt Lake City to see the Mormon’s sacred center.

But I’ve been to Israel.  If you get the opportunity, if you haven’t already, to to Israel. I did in 2000. I saw Bethlehem, The Lake of Galilee, the place of the Last Supper, Jerusalem, the Jordan, the Dead Sea, the mount of Transfiguration  and what have you.

I liked being on the Lake of Galilee the most - because I figured that would be closest to the what a place looked like in the time of Jesus.

I’ve been to various other holy places.  I’ve been to Monte Cassino - the key Benedictine place. It’s in Italy, along with Assissi and all the big churches in Rome.

In France, I got to Montmartre and Notre Dame in Paris. But the one shrine I wanted to go to was Chartres Cathedral, 50 miles south and west of Paris. It supposedly has the most beautiful stained glass windows in the world.  It has big time history - being the Marian Shrine to visit way before Lourdes.

But I did get to  Lourdes  which did give me a feel of what it’s like to go on a pilgrimage.

NUMBERS

I have the word “numbers” in my title. I’m sure you heard what a Hajj for a Moslem is.  It’s one of the 5 sacred pillars of Islam - to make a sacred pilgrimage in your lifetime to Saudi Arabia and Mecca and to the black stone - that goes way, way back in Moslem History.  They got 2.35  million folks there this year.

Parts of the sacred shrine at Mecca have had people breaking off pieces of the sacred stone. During the French Revolution they broke off parts of Chartres - but  luckily it was not destroyed.

RELICS

Interestingly Chartres has the supposed garment of Mary.  Studies say it’s a legend - but when we went there the tour guide said, that it didn’t make any difference if it was  real or whether it was not. The key factor is whether people believed it to be Mary’s cloak.  They did.

In Tepyyak, they have the cloak of Juan Diego, which has the image of Mary on it.  Like the tilma or cloak of Mary, this too was  tried to be destroyed, but no luck.

CONCLUSIONS

Pilgrimages are good.

Our Mary pilgrimages are very Catholic. Mary is very Catholic and Lourdes and Fatima, Guadalupe and Aparacida connect us deeply with Mary.

If you have a chance, go for it.