Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrates God’s love for those indigenous to the Western Hemisphere
By Brent Mattson
The B.C. Catholic

VANCOUVER--Not only was Dec. 12 the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, but the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops had declared it a National Day of Prayer for Aboriginal Peoples.

For the past few years the CCCB had asked Catholics to keep Canada’s aboriginal peoples in their prayers on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They even established the Canadian Catholic Aboriginal Council. The body is made up of two bishops and seven native people, including Rennie Nahanee, Vancouver’s own First Nations Coordinator.

This year the aboriginal council has focused prayers on a Dakelh woman named Rose Prince from Fort St. James, B.C. She died from tuberculosis complications in 1949. In 1951 it was discovered that her body had not decayed after her death. Her grave is now a place of pilgrimage, drawing people from across the country.

Nahanee and many others hope to see her beatified in the future, and eventually canonized.

“That her body was found to be incorrupt is certainly a sign of sainthood,” he said. “She went to residential school and returned to work with the students there later in life. She had a strong prayer life prior to her death.”

Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Holy Rosary Cathedral. Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of the Americas. The feast commemorates a Marian apparition in Mexico in 1531, when she appeared to St. Juan Diego, a recently converted Aztec.

“The evangelization of the Americas truly begins with Our Lady appearing as a Mestizo woman talking to a poor indigenous man,” Archbishop Miller said. “It began as the Gospel always does, as a dialogue with the poor.”

The Mass was an opportunity to recognize the archdiocese’s vibrant and growing Latin American community, but Nahanee said the feast day has significance to all indigenous people in the Americas.

“That the Mother of God came to see an Aztec person in that year, and appeared as an Aztec woman, is amazing,” Nahanee said. “It must’ve been really awesome that she spoke to him in his language rather than Spanish or English.”

Juan Diego became the New World’s first indigenous saint when Pope John Paul II canonized him in 2002. Before he was baptized, Juan Diego’s name was Cuauhtlatoatzin, meaning Eagle-Who-Speaks.

“I think it’s very significant today,” Nahanee said of the canonization. “First Nations people are bringing back their language and cultures and finding their way back to God.”

In the cold of December, Our Lady led Juan Diego to a patch of roses he could take to the bishop to prove the vision had occurred. He carried them in his tilma (cactus-fibre cloak), and when he arrived before the bishop it had a miraculous imprint of the Virgin Mother on it.

“The image of Guadalupe is Mestizo,” Nahanee said. “In a sense, that’s a reconciliation of two people who were enemies before, but now formed a new people together.”