Hardback: Nearly a decade after Spain’s conquest of Mexico, the future of Christianity on the American continent was very much in doubt. Confronted with a hostile colonial government and Native Americans wary of conversion, the newly-appointed bishop-elect of Mexico wrote to tell the King of Spain that, unless there was a miracle, the continent would be lost. Between December 9 and December 12, 1531, that miracle happened, and it forever changed the future of the continent.
It was then that the Virgin Mary famously appeared to a Native American Christian convert on a hilltop outside of what is now Mexico City. The image she left imprinted on his cloak or tilma has puzzled scientists for centuries, and yet Our Lady of Gudalupe’s place in history is profound. A continent that just months before the apparitions seemed completely lost to Christianity suddenly and inexplicably embraced it by the millions. Our Lady of Guadalupe’s message of love replaced the institutionalized violence of the Aztec culture, and built a bridge between two worlds — the old and the new — that were just ten years earlier engaged in brutal warfare.
Today, Our Lady of Guadalupe continues to inspire the devotion of millions. From Canada to Argentina — and even beyond the Americas — one finds great devotion to her, and great appreciation for her message of love, unity and hope. Today reproductions of the Virgin’s miraculous image can be seen throughout North and South America, in churches and homes, on billboards and even clothing apparel. Her shrine in Mexico City, where the miraculous image is housed to this day, is one of the most visited in the world.
In Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love (2009), Anderson and Chávez trace the history of Our Lady of Guadalupe from the sixteenth century to the present and discuss how her message was and continues to be an important catalyst for religious and cultural transformation.
Looking at Our Lady of Guadalupe as a model of the Church and Juan Diego as a model for all Christians who seek to answer Christ’s call of conversion and witness, the authors explore the changing face of the Catholic Church in North, Central, and South America, and they show how Our Lady of Guadalupe’s message was not only historically significant, but how it speaks to contemporary issues confronting the American continents and people today.
About the authors: Sir Carl Albert Anderson is the thirteenth and current Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic family fraternal service organization, which has nearly 2 million members. Mr Anderson has had a distinguished career as a public servant and educator. In 1988, he became the founding vice president and first dean of the Washington, DC, session of this graduate school of theology now located at The Catholic University of America.
He is the author of the New York Times bestseller, A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can Do To Transform The World; co-author (with Msgr Eduardo Chávez) of Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love, also a New York Times bestseller; co-editor (with Livio Melina) of The Way of Love: Reflections on Pope Benedict XVI's Encyclical Deus Caritas Est; co-author (with José Granados) Called to Love: Approaching John Paul II’s Theology of the Body; and author of Beyond a House Divided: The Moral Consensus Ignored by Washington, Wall Street and the Media.
Mr Anderson holds degrees in philosophy from Seattle University and in law from the University of Denver. He is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and is admitted to practice law before the US Supreme Court. He and his wife, Dorian, are the parents of five children.
Father Eduardo Chávez is one of the most renowned experts on the Guadalupe apparitions and the postulator of St Juan Diego’s cause for sainthood. He is the first Dean of the Catholic University Lumen Gentium of the Archdiocese of Mexico, co-founder and Dean of the Higher Institute for Guadalupan Studies and honorary Canon of the Guadalupe Basilica.
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