ANTORCHA-GUADALUPE TORCH RUN AND FEAST OF OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
JUSTICE, PEACE, AND INTEGRITY OF CREATION (JPIC)
The Antorcha-Guadalupe Torch Run, a relay run from Mexico City to New York City, is an annual religious celebration of solidarity and hope for justice. Thousands of people participate along the route.
Every November, our parish welcomes the Guadalupe Torch light along with the replicas of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Saint Juan Diego. Our parishioners carry the touch along its journey to Saint Julia Catholic Church in Siler City. The month-long celebration culminates on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Every November, our parish welcomes the Guadalupe Torch light along with the replicas of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Saint Juan Diego. Our parishioners carry the touch along its journey to Saint Julia Catholic Church in Siler City. The month-long celebration culminates on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
If you have any questions, please contact:
Katushka Olave, Spanish Pastoral Associate, (919) 281-0728
Katushka Olave, Spanish Pastoral Associate, (919) 281-0728
2024 ANTORCHA-GUADALUPE TORCH RUN AND
THE FEAST OF OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
Dates Forthcoming
OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE AND
JUSTICE, PEACE, AND THE INTEGRITY OF CREATION: WHAT DO THEY HAVE IN COMMON?
Fr. Jacek Orzechowski, OFM
During Advent season, the Immaculate Conception parish may appear to be a cauldron of various activities among them, Advent Alternative Gift Fair, putting the final touches on our solar panel lease to make sure we can finally harness the power of brother sun to meet some of our electricity needs, advocating for an end to death penalty, and… celebrating the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Is it too far-fetched to claim that they are all profoundly interconnected?
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In the course of many centuries, a devotion to Mary has profoundly shaped the religious imagination of hundreds of millions of Catholics across the globe. This has been particularly true on the American continent, where in 1531, the Mother of God, Our Lady of Guadalupe, appeared to a poor indigenous man. The Guadalupe event had a decisive effect on evangelization of the Americas. Within just 15 years, about nine million native people flocked to Church seeking baptism, a conversion that was not brought about from the top down through an alliance with political power, but rather from the bottom up, through the agency of marginalized, indigenous people like Juan Diego.
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The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and her message continue to reveal new meanings for Catholics in the 21st century. Her image can often be found on banners carried by the indigenous groups in Mexico in their non-violent struggle for economic, racial and environmental justice. The image of the dark-skinned Mother of God challenges the Church to strengthen its efforts to defend the poor and vulnerable, both human and non-human members of the earth’s community of life.
The Mother of God, depicted as a mestiza woman, beckons the Church to embark on the path of ecological conversion. Many of the features in her image have cosmic overtones. The young, dark-faced young woman wears a dark belt above her waist, a sign that she is pregnant. There is something unique about the gestating new life in her womb since the four-petaled jasmine flower placed on the red tunic, right over the womb, indicates the divine identify of the child to be born. In the Nahuatl language and culture, flowers are more than flowers: they are symbols, words, and concepts. The four-petaled jasmine flower symbolizes the four directions—north, south, east, and west—the totality that span the entire universe. The small circle in the center of the jasmine flower signifies for the Toltec Indians the only living and true God.
The Mother of God, depicted as a mestiza woman, beckons the Church to embark on the path of ecological conversion. Many of the features in her image have cosmic overtones. The young, dark-faced young woman wears a dark belt above her waist, a sign that she is pregnant. There is something unique about the gestating new life in her womb since the four-petaled jasmine flower placed on the red tunic, right over the womb, indicates the divine identify of the child to be born. In the Nahuatl language and culture, flowers are more than flowers: they are symbols, words, and concepts. The four-petaled jasmine flower symbolizes the four directions—north, south, east, and west—the totality that span the entire universe. The small circle in the center of the jasmine flower signifies for the Toltec Indians the only living and true God.
Our Lady of Guadalupe wears a turquoise mantle covered with stars symbolizing the heavens. In the Aztec culture, the sun and the moon were associated with gods and were objects of awe and fear. To appease them, the Aztecs used to offer human sacrifices, believing that they could thus ensure cosmic harmony and preservation of life on earth. However, the Virgin eclipses the sun and stands on the moon, assuaging the fears of cosmic collapse. Beneath her feet is an angel whose wings are those of an eagle. In the view of the indigenous people, an eagle was considered to be a herald of the Aztec civilization. Here, the eagle-angel is a messenger of a new civilization as he holds up the woman who is about to bring the divine child to the world, joining together heaven and earth.
Over the past centuries, the Church have associated the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe with the woman described in the Book of Revelation as the one “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet” (Rev 12:1). In a homily at World Youth Day in Czestochowa (Aug. 15, 1991) Saint John Paul II referred to this biblical image in these words:
“This is the sign of fulfillment in the dimensions of the entire cosmos. In this sign, creation in all its many riches returns to God who is the Creator, that is, the absolute Beginning of everything that exists…. Opposite the woman clothed with the sun, which symbolizes the cosmos transformed into the Kingdom of the living God, appears another sign…a dragon who wants to devour the Virgin’s child.”
As we know, the Kingdom of God is intimately related to a divine desire for justice, peace and harmony within God’s creation. We also know that the powerful, larger-than-life forces of the political, social, economic systems of power – expressed in a form of a mythical dragon or Satan – that stand in the way of God’s Kingdom. Besides being the first and most perfect of Christ’s disciples, Mary also represents the Church, even the earth itself and the destiny of all of God’s creation.
Over the past centuries, the Church have associated the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe with the woman described in the Book of Revelation as the one “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet” (Rev 12:1). In a homily at World Youth Day in Czestochowa (Aug. 15, 1991) Saint John Paul II referred to this biblical image in these words:
“This is the sign of fulfillment in the dimensions of the entire cosmos. In this sign, creation in all its many riches returns to God who is the Creator, that is, the absolute Beginning of everything that exists…. Opposite the woman clothed with the sun, which symbolizes the cosmos transformed into the Kingdom of the living God, appears another sign…a dragon who wants to devour the Virgin’s child.”
As we know, the Kingdom of God is intimately related to a divine desire for justice, peace and harmony within God’s creation. We also know that the powerful, larger-than-life forces of the political, social, economic systems of power – expressed in a form of a mythical dragon or Satan – that stand in the way of God’s Kingdom. Besides being the first and most perfect of Christ’s disciples, Mary also represents the Church, even the earth itself and the destiny of all of God’s creation.
All too often, Christians tend to regard God’s creation merely as a stage for the spiritual dramas of our souls. We have been conditioned to think dualistically with matter and spirit, creation and salvation as being separate realities. However, the holy scriptures and our theological tradition at its best insist that salvation has to do with a continuation, transformation, and fulfillment of God’s creation. A renown theologian John Haught observes that, “The Evangelist Luke pictures Mary as the very model of genuine eschatological faith because she ‘believed that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled.’” As Mary knew that “God’s promise covers the whole temporal and spatial sweep of creation,” so we “ought to learn to treasure the totality of nature not simply for its sacramental transparency to God, but also because it carries in its present perishable glory the seeds of a final flowering.” (“Ecology and Eschatology” in ‘And God Saw That It Was Good’ from USCCB Publishing).
The pregnant woman in the Book of Revelation 12:1-6, faced with a dragon ready to devour her child, dared to issue forth her tiny act of love. In the 21st-century Americans, we face many dragons. That includes various forms of systemic injustices, climate change emergency, and biodiversity crisis. In the midst of those struggles, we are challenged to act with courage and hope, as Mary did, and give birth to tiny acts of love and resistance. When we protect our common home, treasure human life, seek climate justice, protect the biodiversity, and seek the common good, we are doing precisely that.
The pregnant woman in the Book of Revelation 12:1-6, faced with a dragon ready to devour her child, dared to issue forth her tiny act of love. In the 21st-century Americans, we face many dragons. That includes various forms of systemic injustices, climate change emergency, and biodiversity crisis. In the midst of those struggles, we are challenged to act with courage and hope, as Mary did, and give birth to tiny acts of love and resistance. When we protect our common home, treasure human life, seek climate justice, protect the biodiversity, and seek the common good, we are doing precisely that.
May the example of Mary who believed that the words spoken by God will be fulfilled inspire a new hope within us and prompts us to act with love in its personal, social and ecological dimensions. God passionately loves each one of us, imperfect human beings as we are, along with all earth’s community of life. During this time of Advent, we ponder on the mystery of Christ who came so that all may have life, life in abundance. Do we dare to believe that God’s will can be accomplished on earth as it is in heaven? Saint Paul teaches us that all creation is called to “share in the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom 8:21).
We pray that Our Lady of Guadalupe continue to walk with us on our journey of ecological conversions. May she continue to empower us to trust in God’s promises so that we can do what is ours to do.
We pray that Our Lady of Guadalupe continue to walk with us on our journey of ecological conversions. May she continue to empower us to trust in God’s promises so that we can do what is ours to do.
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2023 ANTORCHA-GUADALUPE TORCH RUN AND
THE FEAST OF OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
2022 ANTORCHA-GUADALUPE TORCH RUN AND
THE FEAST OF OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
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If you have questions regarding our various JPIC ministries, please contact me directly.
Kennith M. Chiha, Director of Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation (JPIC)
Immaculate Conception Catholic Church - 901-A West Chapel Hill Street, Durham, NC 27701
(919) 682-3449 Ext. 293 - [email protected]
If you have questions regarding our various JPIC ministries, please contact me directly.
Kennith M. Chiha, Director of Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation (JPIC)
Immaculate Conception Catholic Church - 901-A West Chapel Hill Street, Durham, NC 27701
(919) 682-3449 Ext. 293 - [email protected]