Our Lady of Gudalupe

http://ncronline.org/blogs/author-discusses-writing-national-geographic-s-december-cover-story-virgin-mary    

Neil brought the December 2005 issue of National Geographic magazine to Bible Sharing, last night.  It was beautiful--the pictures and the article.  Immediately after Bible Sharing, Mary and I went out and bought our own copies of National Geographic.  Then we spent a couple of hours looking and reading the article.

What impressed me the most was the descriptions of Juan Diego's tilma, with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  I couldn't tell if additions suddenly appeared on the image, or were they man-made.

Sometime between 1531 and 1570 the original image on Juan Diego's tilma was embellished.  Gold stars were added to the Virgin's mantle, aligned, according to a Mexican study published in 1983, in their configuration at dawn on December 12, 1531, the day the image allegedly appeared on the tilma.  The Aztec greatly revered the sun god, and glowing rays added behind Mary signify that she comes from heaven and that her god has divine power.

What do you think?  This is a direct quote, p. 54.  Does it read like the stars and sun's rays miraculously appeared, or that a human artist embellished the image?

I think it sounds like a person embellished the image.  But what human artist would dare touch the tilma?  Who could do it justice by embellishing what a divine artist portrayed?  So on second thought, the embellishment must be of divine origin.

Awesome.