Angel
The Angel is the messenger.
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As part of the image, at the Virgin’s feet, is a strange angel, with the face of a child and a partial boldness indicating old age. His wings are not those of a dove but of an eagle, with three colors: a bluish-green, a yellowish or ivory white, and finally, red. This angel is called the “Virgin of Guadalupe’s Angel”. Although for Spaniards it is a strange angel, for Indian mentality it is perfectly coherent and in harmony with everything else. The eagle was the bird that could fly highest, symbolizing the sun itself, since it was the creature that could go nearest to it and carried the essence of the food to sustain the gods. It was the eagle that carried in its claws the hearts and the blood of the victims that had been sacrificed to sustain the gods. It was also the eagle that carried the crop of life, the crop of hearts and the consecrated blood to feed the divinity. It was very important for Mexico, since it indicated the precise spot where the town should be founded and where they built the temple for Huitzilopochtli, the sun at its zenith. It is then an angel, messenger, child and old man at the same time, at once full of strength and wisdom that shows us now the true food. This message of Love that is Mary’s whole figure, who brings us Jesus in her womb, complete and full love, and comes to give it to all human beings in a temple, the manifestation of new civilization of Love. All this is a new conformation of the absolute coherence of the whole message. It is in the temple where the central sacrament is celebrated: the Eucharist. It is therefore expressing an enormous and crucial truth: It is not you who are intended to feed the gods with the blood and the hearts of the victims on the sacrificial stone; rather, it is my Son Jesus Christ. The true God for whom one lives, Lord of heaven and earth, God of nearness and immediacy, who offers himself to you as food, as Jesus himself says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”(John:6, 52-58) It is the Almighty God who gives himself in sacrifice for love on the cross. Thus, Holy Mary of Guadalupe is presented as the Eucharistic Woman.. |
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