Ayr on a Shoe String

Question:

How does one economise on a journey from Dalmally, near Oban, to Ayr - going via Moscow?

Very simple really. After East Kilbride, you take the A719 via the village of Moscow! At Craig Lodge, Dalmally, where Mary's Meals is based, it was splendid to stay in a beautiful room under the special protection of St Patrick (who i've seen more than once claimed for Scotland in the past couple of weeks). I also spent an extra night in a beehive cell, like those inhabited by the very earliest Christian missionaries to Scotland and Ireland, on the mountainside above Craig Lodge, reading part of St Adamnan's extraordinary Life of St Columba, and a short treatise on St Kessog. On the way down to my second visit to the David Livingstone Centre in Blantyre, there was outstanding free accommodation and hospitality from Rev Dane Sherrard, a Church of Scotland minister responsible for the above-mentioned account of St Kessog, who specialises in pilgrimage at Luss (a friend of my Dad's), and from Fr Willy Slavin, the parish priest of St Simon's church in Partick (a Scot who has in fact a better claim to be Bristolian than i have, being born and baptised in Filton). Every year there is a walk from St Simon's to Blantyre, to commemorate the inestimable help in learning Latin given to the young David Livingstone by Fr Daniel Gallagher, enabling him to matriculate as a student of medicine at the university of Glasgow. Something i learnt at his birthplace museum in Blantyre (for which Fr Slavin bought me a ticket), inclines me to believe very strongly that, even if the international media don't know anything about the walk i hope to do, Dr David Livingstone himself does. As a result of the extra night in Dalmally, i left there on Wednesday 1st of May - the 140th anniversary of the death of Dr Livingstone, in the early hours of May 1st 1873. Previously i had left Blantyre in the week of the 200th anniversary of his birth: 19th March 1813. Interestingly, both these dates are feasts of St Joseph, the foster father of Jesus. And here's where i do a bit of speculation. Scotland has very long established links to Malawi, dating from Dr Livingstone's journeying there in the 19th century, hence the place names Blantyre and Livingstonia. And there is no better single representative of these enduring ties than the work of Mary's Meals, originating there, and now helping a quarter of a million hungry schoolchildren in numerous countries around the world to receive a meal in their place of education . So i believe that Dr Livingstone is no less keen to tell the world about Mary's Meals than any of the tireless volunteers, employees and helpers who generously devote so much of their time and resources to it.

This journey is principally inspired by the film Child 31, which i cannot reccommend highly enough:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCJTzcVS3Yk

Apologies for being a bit remiss in keeping this blog up to date - and i only have a few more minutes in this library in Newton Stewart, Galloway. Thanks be to God however, the knee has been fine. I'm currently on my way, God-willing, to Whithorn, where St Ninian built Scotland's first ever church, dedicated to St Martin of Tours (a special Protector, with St Joseph and Dr Livingstone, of this pilgrimage) - and i now hope, with God's help, to continue not via England, but via Ireland.

"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"[1]

The David Livingstone Centre, Blantyre, Lanarkshire, 22nd March 2013

The preparations and first days of this journey, in which God-willing i hope to walk as far as reasonably possible from Blantyre, Lanarkshire, to Blantyre, Malawi, have done nothing to diminish my conviction that there is an intrinsic connection between pilgrimage and divine providence. 'Northern Cross' is an annual religious roam from various points in southern Scotland and northern England to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, partly inspired by the 7th century peregrinations of St Cuthbert. When i signed up to be part of it in February, i already had the outline of an African enterprise in mind, but i wasn't certain initially that there would be any connection between the two treks. With about 10 days to go however, not only was it reported on BBC radio, that the week of our departure from Lanark would see celebrations of the bicentenary of the birth of famous African missionary and explorer Dr David Livingstone, in Blantyre, just up the road from Lanark; but a google search of 'Blantyre' brought up the one in Malawi, which turns out to be the very place i hope to reach, with God's help; it was here in 2002 that Mary's Meals began! I would not have expected to be doing another of these walks, but the premiere of 'Child 31'[2] in Glasgow last November got me thinking about how i might try to be of further assistance, not least as i had just finished writing the account of my Mexico mission. Needless to say, i am immensely privileged to have an opportunity to try to do this, and i pray that i may never pass up any chance to thank the Lord for His goodness to me.



Naïve clouds over Dalkeith; Arthur's Seat and Edinburgh in the distance



   Having said all that, on Friday morning, on my way to Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, as naïve clouds with ruled-line undersides sailed serenely across the cobalt heavens above, my knee went. I ascribe this principally to walking too far too fast, after stopping over Easter at my home in Berwick-on-the-Scottish-side-of-the-Tweed.[3] It means however that i'm under doctor's orders to rest and recuperate, which i've chosen to do here in Dundee, staying for a few nights in a youth hostel occupying a fascinating merchant's house known as 'Gardyne's Land', dating back to around 1560, with some sections even older; "...the only complete domestic survivor from the time when Dundee was Scotland's second city." From here i hope to make my way to St Andrews, then west to Dalmally, where Mary's Meals is famously based in a shed.

   On my arrival in Blantyre in the early evening of Thursday 21st March, i had every reason to think that a night out in the snowy open air lay before me. I might have known however, that after Mass in St Joseph's Church i'd be spontaneously invited to a prayer meeting, where everyone knew all about Dalmally and Mary's Meals, and that having given me a significant amount of sponsorship money, one of their number (a Protestant, as it happens), would offer to put me up on his sofa! Next morning i was taken to Blantyre's David Livingstone centre in this gentleman's car, then up the road a few miles to visit a priest friend of his, Fr Dominic Towey, at St John the Baptist in Uddingston, where around £130,000 has been raised by parishioners for Mary's Meals over the years. He gave me a blessing and yet another kind donation, after which i put up very little resistance to the idea of driving to Carluke, leaving only a modest amble to St Mary's Church in Lanark, where i fell in with the cheerful troop of Northern Cross pilgrims from a range of denominations, whose excellent company i would keep on the way to Lindisfarne.



Red Squirrel. An hour or so after seeing it we came to a sign next to the road, saying that Grey Squirrels were introduced in 1872.                                                                                                                                



   Our walk, in which pairs of us took turns to carry an 8 foot wooden cross, was characterised by sometimes heavy snow falling on us during the day, followed by often wonderful hospitality being showered on us in the evenings. Over a Passover supper on Maundy Thursday Lauren, one of a brother/sister duo who were outstanding ambassadors for California, invited everyone to share their high and low-points. It didn't come to me at the time, but a high for me was the fish and chips we had for supper in Biggar, after we'd been invited in for a cup of tea in 007's kitchen (you had to be there), and i'd been to Palm Sunday vigil Mass at the Church of St Isidore of Seville, which is actually the converted front room of someone's house. I was technically fasting from fish and dairy products for Lent, but the chip shop had inadvertantly given us an extra portion of haddock, so it seemed rude not to help find a home for it! Besides this, there was a rare lowland sighting of a red squirrel on the way to Selkirk, and a really super supper in the Manse there (as also in St Boswells and Kelso), where a parishioner introduced me to Robert Burns' 'Selkirk Grace':

'Some ha[v]e meat and canna eat,

And some wad [would] eat that want it;

But we ha[v]e meat, and we can eat,

Sae let the Lord be thankit.'

1955 tractor to escort us over the river Till

In Kelso i must never forget how Helen, our organiser and leader on the Lanark leg, rescued me from a deep hole i was digging for myself, when i ventured the opinion that perhaps our trifle could be described as 'Scotch', by virtue of the fact that Rev Tom had been, in his words, 'stingy' with the sherry he put in it - but i wasn't suggesting Scottish people are stingy! "How could you be", asked Helen, without missing a beat, "when all the available evidence is so stacked against such a conclusion?" On Maundy Thursday we visited the battlefield of Flodden, whose quincentenary falls in September this year, and sang a few bars of 'Flower of Scotland'. Soon afterwards there was an Indiana Jones-esque moment when a thick layer of moss had to be removed from a signpost, directing us to Etal; then we saw an otter in the river Till, across which we were graciously escorted in a cart behind a tractor driven by a gentleman farmer from central casting. Then there was the final tramp on Good Friday, much longer than i expected, in bare feet, across the sometimes thick, always cold mud and occasionally sharp seashells, to Holy Island; taking care not to stray the wrong side of a row of wooden markers (tree-trunks driven into the mud), where there is treacherous quick-sand. The camaraderie and hymn-singing with a great assemblage of other pilgrims was memorable there, and our being snapped by a large contingent of press photographers. Brian (Lauren's brother) came up with the best joke of the day, when he asked one of the organisers, "How many photographers have you lost over the years?"

   Here in Dundee it happens (providentially) that i've been able to meet up with a couple who i met at a pro-life conference a few years ago. She had an outstanding letter published in this weekend's Scottish Catholic Observer, which i feel obliged to reproduce here:

Charity begins with the basics of life

"I refer to Mary McGinty's article, [SCO February 22], and wholly agree that we must be careful when donating to charities if we do not wish to compromise our beliefs.

   Some months ago, in the letters section of your paper, a dismayed parishioner had expressed concern that the parish priest had sanctioned the display of a poster promoting a Christian Aid event. The priest said that Christian Aid did a lot of good work. It is true that it does do a great deal of good, but it also funds 'reproductive health' projects, which in essence means the carrying out of abortions and distributing abortifacient contraceptives and so on to young girls in developing countries. Unfortunately, several other well-known charities do the same.

   What the charities should be doing rather, is working to bring a reduction in maternal deaths. Well over 90% of the world's maternal deaths take place in developing countries. The majority of these deaths are easily preventable by basic healthcare and living conditions, which the rest of the world has long taken for granted.

   If only charities, such as Christian Aid, would help these types of projects instead of putting funds into population control, women in developing countries could be properly looked after during childbirth."

MB Kobylarska O'Sullivan

DUNDEE  

[1]Attributed to HM Stanley, November 1871.

[2]A very powerful documentary about Mary's Meals by Grassroots Films which i cannot recommend highly enough.

[3]more commonly known as Berwick-upon-Tweed.

[some names have been changed]

XV Rome: The Eternal City



Minor ailments notwithstanding, it was wonderful to be visiting Rome, my excuse being that i’d been invited to a wedding in Calabria, in the far south of Italy, taking place at the end of the week. It meant that i could see the Vatican and the captivating interior of St Peter’s Basilica for the first time - on my only previous visit, as a feckless atheist teenager, i’d been wearing shorts and wasn’t allowed in. On Sunday 7^th August i went to Mass in the little chapel at the airport, before taking a bus into town, from which could be seen a poster about an anti-war demonstration on the day before, 6^th August, the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Before long i was in St Peter’s Square, but though the weather was more or less perfect, i realised my cold would preclude me from queueing to go inside the great church. After some time in an internet café, a nap on a park bench, and pottering about near the Colloseum, after dark i found a nice not-too-expensive hotel near Rome Termini train station. Feeling better on Monday 8^th August, St Dominic’s day, i opted for an organised tour of the Vatican museums, with a young guide from the US, featuring of course a stunning wealth of breathtaking masterpieces, not least frescoes by Raphael and some very worthwhile daubs by Michaelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, the subject of a Russian language book which i bought for a friend. Also on sale was a well-thumbed copy of the second part of Pope Benedict’s epoch-defining biography of Our Lord, ‘Jesus of Nazareth’. Any doubts over buying it were dispelled, when i opened it to a page with a little fold in the corner, to find a commentary on these words from St John’s Gospel:

St Peter's Basilica, Rome

“I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.” [John 17:20-21]

“For this the Lord prayed: for a unity that can come into existence only from God and through Christ and yet is so concrete in its appearance that in it we are able to see God’s power at work. That is why the struggle for the visible unity of the disciples of Jesus Christ remains an urgent task for Christians of all times and places.”

   Walsingham is almost unique, outside the Holy Land, in holding a place in the affections of the faithful of all three major branches of Christianity, making it the ideal place from which to set off, on Christian Unity Sunday,  on an expedition dedicated to the cause of Christian unity; “…so that the world may believe”. My prayer has been that God would take this pilgrimage as His own and use it expressly for this most dearly cherished aspiration. Because Christian unity is a matter of life and death. Not only in terms of the eternal salvation of the souls of people who can make themselves seen and heard (important as that is), but concretely, Christian unity is a matter of life and death for those who are hampered in their ability to be seen or heard. Who could have imagined, in the age of the electron microscope, that the course of western history would take such a barbaric turn, as to see the condemnation of our fellow human beings, deeming them fit for nothing more than summary slaughter, for the ‘crime’ of being invisible to the naked eye? These are our children - the most precious members of any and every society. These little infants are the future of our society. They are the teachers, nurses, builders, doctors, train drivers; sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, grandparents of the future. Or at the other end of life, how could we have become so unfeeling as to give credence to the notion that our fellow humans can be considered as no more than burdens, inconvenient remnants of the past, no longer worthy to occupy space on earth, for whom there must be a conveyor belt into the grave? Never has there been such merciless contempt for the weakest, most utterly defenceless members of our society as there is now. Christian disunity, insofar as it impedes efforts to speak out on their behalf, is the end of the world for those people who depend on someone – anyone, to speak for them. And ironically, given that selfishness undoubtedly is at the heart of our cultural malaise, this obligation to speak out is firmly rooted in self-interest. How many times must we see the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller, before acknowledging that they apply to us, here and now?

“First they came for the communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a communist
Then they came for the socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me”

“And Jesus knowing their thoughts, said to them: Every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate: and every city or house divided against itself shall fall.” [Mt 12:25]

   When the tour had finished i came round the Vatican’s magnificent outer walls, and back to St Peter’s Square. After an hour or so of joyful wonderment and meditation inside St Peter’s Basilica, and praying at the tomb of Blessed John XXIII, i took a photo of a pair of Swiss guards, and called out the name of San Dominico to some Dominicans in their distinctive black and white habits. The journey by train to Calabria allowed me to make yet another pilgrimage within a pilgrimage, to Bari, at whose thousand year-old Basilica i could pray for young people and the cause of Christian unity before the tomb of St Nicholas of Mira, the fourth century Bishop so dearly beloved of Christians, and indeed Muslims, and above all children the world over. May he please pray for us.     

   Mount Etna, the active volcano on the island of Sicily, fumed dramatically in the background as we celebrated the wedding, not far from Reggio di Calabria. Boarding another locomotive, i headed home via the enchanted Alpine scenery of Austria, before arriving in Munich, where it proved helpful to be able to fix myself up with one last improvised sleep, in the basement of a recently constructed apartment block. On the next day i economised by taking a train with numerous connections to Dusseldorf, including a passage through the valley of the Rhine, encrusted with seemingly dozens of fairy tale castles. An overnight coach from the Ruhr passed through Brussels on its way to Calais, from where we crossed by ferry to Dover, before reaching London on the morning of Monday 15^th August, when the Church traditionally marks the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven.

***

   In expounding the relative merits of the three principal prayers of each decade of the Rosary, the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory be, Blessed John Paul II stated that the summit of contemplation is focused on the last:

"To the extent that meditation on the mystery is attentive and profound, and to the extent that it is enlivened - from one Hail Mary to another - by love for Christ and for Mary, the glorification of the Trinity at the end of each decade, far from being a perfunctory conclusion, takes on its proper contemplative tone, raising the mind as it were to the heights of heaven, and enabling us in some way to relive the experience of [the Transfiguration], a foretaste of the contemplation yet to come: 'It is good for us to be here!'" [Lk. 9:33; RVM, no. 34].

   So conceivably, one might conclude from this that while the Rosary is a Marian devotion, in which Our Lady as it were takes us by the hand and leads us through the life of her Son, nevertheless its apogee, the Glory be, transcends Mary, and lifts our thoughts above the one who, after all, is but a mortal; the Mother, yes, but also a mere creature, in need of her Saviour, like everyone else. Could this be the key to unity? Must we moderate our devotion to Mary, seen as she is, even by some Christians, as a distraction, or worse an infantile preoccupation, an idol, even. Not on your life. Among human beings, nobody’s perfect – except St Mary, the Immaculate Conception.[1] On one level, the Glory be is a prayer of acclamation of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary; she who is, uniquely in our race, Daughter of the Father, Mother of the Son, and Spouse of the Holy Spirit:

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: World Without End. Amen.

[1] “The Immaculate Conception is a dogma of the Catholic Church maintaining that from the moment when she was conceived the Blessed Virgin Mary was kept free of original sin and was filled with the sanctifying grace normally conferred during baptism.” [Wikipedia]



Musicians and dancers gathering at Zocalo Cathedral, Mexico City, to mark the IXth anniversary of the canonisation of
St Juan Diego, 30 July 2011

XIII Mexico: The Golden Goal

Chapel of Our Lady of Czestachowa, Poland

   Many Christians put a special emphasis on the words spoken by Our Lord as He endured His sorrowful passion, and subjected Himself to the furnace of excruciating affliction on the cross, in order to accomplish the salvific purpose contained within His Name; Jesus - God saves. In spite of His undoubted innocence, Pontius Pilate, the archetype of a cowardly, populist politician, had sought vainly to appease the baying crowd by ordering that Jesus be scourged to within an inch of His life. Unsatisfied, and not content either with a crown of thorns that pierced and dug deeply into Our Lord’s head and face, already so cruelly abused and spat upon, the people persisted in their demand for the ultimate brutality: crucifixion. At the ‘place of the skull’, Golgotha, having been compelled to carry His cross along Jerusalem’s Via Dolorosa, His spasm-stricken limbs were extended across the beams and, in a satanic travesty of the holy carpenter’s profession, nails were driven through His sacred hands and feet. Then the dark epicentre of torture, as the cross was raised; but death would not be His for another three hours. How far, it might be wondered, were the Roman executioners clouded in their outlook by a sense of racial supremacy, magnifying their capacity to act in such a callous way? The killing of one human being by another so often stems from a failure to recognise the fullness of the other person’s humanity. Yet while going through, severally, agonies and torments that individually one wouldn’t dream of inflicting on an animal, Our Lord was emphatic:

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” [Luke 23:34]

As He neared His last breath, St John tells us: 

“Seeing His Mother and the disciple whom He loved standing near her, Jesus said to His Mother, 'Woman, behold thy son.' Then to the disciple He said, 'Behold thy Mother.' And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.” [John 19:26-27]

   On his visit to Our Lady’s house in Ephesus[1] on 29^th November 2006, Pope Benedict XVI, one of the greatest teachers of his or any other generation, and possessed of an intellect as powerful as any human who has ever lived[2], explained:

“The Son of God thus fulfilled His mission: born of the Virgin in order to share our human condition in everything but sin, at His return to the Father He left behind in the world the sacrament of the unity of the human race: the family “brought into unity from the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”[3], at whose heart is this new bond between the Mother and the disciple. Mary’s divine motherhood and her ecclesial motherhood are thus inseparably united. […] And the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ and of the Church, is the Mother of that mystery of unity which Christ and the Church inseparably signify and build up, in the world and throughout history.”

 ***

   It was quite exciting and extraordinary, as the plane took off and climbed away from the runway at Tokyo Narita, to think that my hop across the Pacific Ocean would demand nothing more of me than to sit back and enjoy the view. A “mini-night” of half darkness was a curious and unexpected feature of the 18 hour voyage. I got some sleep, prayed my rosary, read a British newspaper, and watched one or two Hollywooden motion pictures that left no lasting impression. Crossing the International Date Line meant we landed in Mexico at 3.30pm on the same Wednesday 27^th July, still dedicated to Blessed Robert Nutter; apparently only 4 hours after the Japanese departure time.

   Also commemorated on 27^th July are the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, sometimes named as SS. Maximian, Malchus, Martinian, Dionysius, John, Serapion, and Constantine; martyrs, it appears, from the reign of the Emperor Decius, having been walled up in a cave where they had taken refuge, and left to die. Their relics were found centuries later, possibly under Christian Emperor Theodosius II, whereupon a legend of their having only slept gained widespread currency; their ‘tomb’ became an important centre of pilgrimage. They have since passed into relative obscurity in the Christian world, but their story is recounted in the Qu’ran (Surah 18, verse 9-26), making it highly prominent in Islam. And most instructive to pilgrims of whatever faith are verses 23 and 24:

“Do not say: “I will do this tomorrow”, without saying, “if God Wills.” [Insha’Allah[4]] And, if you forget to do this, you must immediately remember your Lord and say, “May my Lord guide me to do better next time.””

---

[1] Near to what is now Selçuk on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, this house (now a chapel) is believed to have been the one shared by St Mary and St John, located with help from the writings of a 19^th century German nun and mystic, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich. It has become a shrine and pilgrimage destination for both Christians and Muslims, Mary (Maryam) being the woman mentioned more frequently than any other in the Qu’ran.

[2] He can read and understand Ancient Greek and Biblical Hebrew, as well as being fluent in six modern European languages and Latin. First and foremost, Joseph Ratzinger is a theologian, as distinct from Blessed John Paul II’s philosopher. Cardinal Archbishop Joachim Meisner of Cologne once said of him, "He has the intelligence of 12 professors and is as pious as a child on the day of his first communion." If you’re going to have a Pope, you may as well have him.

[3] St Cyprian, De Orat. Dom., 23: PL 4, 536

[4] ‘Allah’ is simply the Arabic word for God; the God of Abraham, worshipped by Muslims, Jews and Christians. This is clear not least from the use of the same word by Arab Christians, and by Christians on the island of Malta, whose language is descended from Arabic. On his visit to Turkey in 2006, Pope Benedict cited the words of Pope Gregory VII, addressing a Muslim Prince in North Africa in 1076, speaking: “…of the particular charity that Christians and Muslims owe to one another…because we believe in one God, albeit in a different manner, and because we praise Him and worship Him every day as the Creator and Ruler of the world.”

The next Surah, 19, meanwhile, is named Maryam (Mary):

^“Relate in Al-Kitab[1] the story of Maryam, when she withdrew from her family to a place in the east.
She placed a screen to screen herself from them; then we sent to her our angel, and he appeared before her as a man in all respects.
She said: I seek refuge from you to Allah most gracious: come not near if you fear Allah.
He said: "No, I am only a messenger from your Lord, to announce to you the gift of a holy Son."
She said: "How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me and I am not unchaste?"
He said: "So it will be: Your Lord says, 'That is easy for Me: and we wish to appoint Him as a sign to men and a mercy from us.' It is a matter so decreed."
So she conceived Him, and she retired with Him to a remote place.” [Surah 19:16-22]

…the same Mary, reckoned by many to have been a primary source for St Luke’s Gospel:

“And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.[…] And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man? And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: Because no word shall be impossible with God. And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.” [Luke 1:26-30, 34-38]

   Thankfully there were no great trials attending my arrival and passage through customs etc at the airport in Mexico City. Spotting two sisters of the order of Poor Clares[2] who had arrived on the same flight, i gave them each little pictures of St Francis of Assisi that i’d picked up in Fukuoka. Since my Spanish was so flimsy, i addressed myself to an English-speaking woman at an information desk, who was rather non-plussed when i asked about the best way of walking to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

   Our Lord was under no obligation to undergo the strains and humiliations of His fully human Incarnation. He could have come straight down from Heaven as a grown man, in the way He is expected to appear in His Second Coming. But He desired to be conceived of the Virgin Mary, born at Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth, as a preparation for His ministry and His saving death on the cross. In other words, He chose to do things the hard way; to go the long way round; to be a Martyr, so that there is no trace of imposture when He is called Emmanuel – ‘God with us’[3]. This is the nature of His invincible solidarity with His children, the supreme mark of His perfect love for every single one of us. So pilgrimage on some level is a very human, and therefore fallible and imperfect, but nonetheless sincere, striving for a semblance of this solidarity, with the poor and with God Himself, in being ready, like them and like Him, to do things the hard way. There is no real love without sacrifice.

Mexico City

   Not that, setting foot on the New World for the first time, i was faced with a very long walk from the airport to the Basilica; 10 kilometres or so, mostly along the edge of a central ring road. I was soon struck by the preponderance of ageing VW Beetles – somewhere in the region of one in three vehicles. The weather was warm rather than hot, the sun trying to pierce a thin covering of cloud. In a little park where i stopped for a rest a statue of Charlie Chaplin invited a photograph. In due course the carriageway took me to a turning for La Calzada de los Misterios, leading to the Basilica. In Aztec times this was a causeway, washed on either side by the shallow waters of Lake Texcoco, connecting the island capital of Tenochtitlan (now the core of Mexico City) to the hill of Tepeyac on the mainland. Bernal Diaz de Castillo, one of 600 Spaniards under the command of Hernan Cortés, who entered Tenochtitlan on 8^th November 1519, described the scene thus:

   "And when we saw so many cities and villages built in the water and other great towns on dry land and that straight and level Causeway going towards Mexico, we were amazed and said that it was like the enchantments they tell of in the legend of Amadis, on account of the great towers and temples and buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry. And some of our soldiers said that all these things seemed to be a dream...There is so much to ponder in this, and i do not know how to tell it, for never was there seen, nor heard, nor even dreamt, anything like that which we then observed."

---



Ever present: VW Beetle, Mexico City

[1] In Islam, Al-Kitab denotes the ‘People of the Book’, ie Christians and Jews.

[2] Followers of St Clare of Assisi, the contemporary and spiritual soul-mate of St Francis.

[3] “And she shall bring forth a Son: and thou shalt call His name JESUS. For He shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which the Lord spoke by the prophet, saying: Behold a Virgin shall be with Child, and bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” [Mt 1:21-23]

According to a legend firmly believed by Cortés himself, the magnificent reception laid on for him by Emperor Moctezuma/Montezuma, was on account of the Aztec belief that he was one of their gods, Quetzalcoatl (the ‘plumed serpent’), whose return from self-imposed exile was expected just at that propitious moment. Tepeyac meanwhile was a pre-Hispanic centre of worship of Tonantzin, translated as ‘our revered mother’, referring to a goddess, or else a series of goddesses in Aztec mythology. On 9^th December 1531, Our Lady is believed to have appeared here to a 57 year-old indigenous Mexican convert to Christianity, a poor widower, St Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, who lived with his uncle, Juan Bernardino. Spanish dominion was established by that time, bringing hardships and humiliations to the native people; though one should never lose sight of the fact that human sacrifice and incessant warfare were essential features of the ousted heathen civilization. It is also noted that, for all their sophistication in some ways, Aztecs had not discovered how to use the wheel. Most importantly though, from a Spanish point of view, they knew nothing of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is reason to believe that the Church sought to defend native people from the excesses of colonisers who looked on them merely as a resource to be exploited. The story goes that, asking Juan Diego in his own Nahuatl language to petition the local Bishop for a church to be built in her honour at Tepeyac, Our Lady called herself Tecoatlaxopeuh, rendered as ‘she who crushes the serpent’; certainly an allusion to the third chapter of Genesis[1], but also resonating perhaps with the Indian population, for whom the ‘plumed serpent’, Quetzalcoatl, seemed to be responsible for such misery. Be that as it may, the Spanish ecclesiastical authorities under Bishop Juan de Zummarraga, attentive (eventually) to Juan Diego’s entreaties, are supposed to have heard Tecoatlaxopeuh as ‘de Guadalupe’, recalling a famous Marian shrine in the Kingdom of Castile.



Rosary monument, La Calzada de los Misterios

   At intervals along La Calzada de los Misterios are tall monuments, with painted Gospel scenes, some in better repair than others, dedicated to each of the traditional 15 Mysterios of the Holy Rosary of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary.[2] Roses feature prominently in the unfolding narrative of St Juan Diego’s encounter with Tecoatlaxopeuh. On the third of their meetings at Tepeyac, the Bishop having asked for a sign to prove the veracity of Juan Diego’s assertions, Our Lady told him to come back to see her on the next day. However, at home he discovered his uncle, Juan Bernadino, apparently mortally ill, obliging him to stay by his bedside for two days. When he left the house it was to fetch a priest, an errand which entailed going via Tepeyac, where Our Lady was waiting. A part of the message she addressed to him that day, 12^th December 1531, is inscribed in Spanish above the entrance to the great big round circus-like 1970s Basilica which i reached at about half past seven in the evening:

Big Top-esque: the Basilica

“¿No estoy yo aquí que soy tu Madre?”[3]

 
A fuller version is as follows:

   “Hear and let it penetrate into your heart, my dear little son; let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you. Let nothing alter your heart or your countenance. Also, do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folding of my arms? Is there anything else that you need?
   Do not fear for your uncle for he is not going to die. Be assured... he is already well.”

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City

   Our Lady then told him to climb to the top of the hill and, though it was December and the ground was frozen, to gather all the flowers he would find growing there. Juan Diego joyfully complied, discovering exquisite Castilian roses, unknown in Mexico, among the cacti, bare scrub and rocks. He collected them into his tilma, a kind of poncho made from coarse cactus fibre, then brought them down to Our Lady, who rearranged them before sending them with her protégé back to the Bishop. At length obtaining a third Episcopal audience, in the company of various other Spaniards St Juan Diego was barely less stupefied than they were to discover, that unfurling his tilma, not only did the gorgeous blooms fall out, but a glorious life-sized image of the Virgin was seen to be impressed on the inside.

   “And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” [Revelation 12:1]

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[1] “And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” [Genesis 3:14-15]

[2] Comprising five Joyful, five Sorrowful and five Glorious mysteries in the life of Jesus and His Mother. ‘A compendium of the Gospel’ in the words of Blessed John Paul II, who added five Luminous mysteries in 2002. ‘Rosary’ is from the Latin word rosarium, meaning ‘rose garden’ or ‘garland of roses’.

[3] “Am I not here who am your Mother?”