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A Random Stranger and I Have the Same Mother
I only discovered it recently
I insisted that I didn’t need a mother.
I don’t celebrate holidays that aren’t on the liturgical calendar, and even one or two that are. I never meant to be a holiday snob, it’s just that there is a lot of pain associated with some holidays, and some are just irrelevant to me.
My most hated holidays, however, are Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Hallmark should have come up with better holidays. I do have a friend that receives a Mother’s Day card from me every year, though. I’d like to think it’s somewhat redemptive for us both.
Once upon a time, there was an Aztec peasant named Juan Diego…
If you’re familiar with the Marian apparition Our Lady of Guadalupe, you know by now where this is going. Our Lady appeared to Juan Diego, a convert to Christianity, in 1531. She appeared dressed as a pregnant Aztec woman, in tradtitional Aztec clothing.
The iconography and symbolism in the apparition is complex, but just as the Holy Spirit at Pentecost came down and everyone heard what was being said in their own language, Our Lady appeared as an Aztec so that she would be understood.
The Aztecs were a brutal people, bloodshed and human sacrifice were common. When Mary appeared to…
