When the Spanish arrived in the middle of the 16th Century in what is now Central Mexico, what they saw was shocking. Cortez and his companions found that the Aztecs had created a complex system of government and sprawling urban centers. The cities hosted dramatic musical and theater performances as well as major public sporting events played by organized sports teams. There were government-mandated holidays and festivals, and their doctors were skilled in advanced medical techniques. But some things were shocking for other reasons. The Spanish saw a society awash in recreational drug use and gambling, and the Aztec religion consisted of superstition, idolatry, pantheism, and earth worship.
Soon after the Spanish conquered the Aztecs, a dozen Franciscan missionaries arrived to try and spread the Gospel to the pagan natives. The missionaries were appalled by the pagan practices, but they were also angered by the conduct of some of the Spaniards who, driven by greed, took the indigenous people’s property and treated them as slaves… or worse. The Spanish government in New Spain was rife with corruption, crime, sin, and vice. The bishop, Friar Zumárraga, wrote the Spanish king in 1529 and chronicled the offenses by the Spanish. He wrote, “I think it well to inform Your Majesty of what is happening now, because it is something that is so important, that if God does not provide a remedy from His hand, this land is about to be totally lost.”
For this letter, the Spanish threatened and harassed the friars, and spread lies about the Franciscans to the indigenous people. Undeterred, the friars fought against idolatry of the Aztecs as well as the behavior of the Spanish. They risked their lives to destroy pagan temples during the night and preached against the grave sins committed by the Spanish during the day, and their efforts began to convert small numbers of the indigenous people to Catholicism, including a 50-year-old farmer named Juan Diego.
On the morning of Saturday, December 9th, when Juan was on his way to morning Mass and Catechism class, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to him on Tepeyac Hill. Over the next few days—culminating in the miracle on December 12th—Juan experienced a series of Marian apparitions that we now know as Our Lady of Guadalupe. Ten years after the miracle, approximately 9 million Mexicans had willingly given up their pagan religion and accepted the truths of the Catholic faith, ushering in the sweeping conversion of the Mexican people.
In addition to giving up their worship of multiple gods and goddesses, these early converts gave up something else: the practice of offering human sacrifices to these various deities. It was something the Aztecs were brutally efficient at: during one well-documented event about 80,000 men were sacrificed over a 4-day period by removing the beating heart from still-alive human victims at the rate of one every 15 seconds. Thanks to Our Lady of Guadalupe they gave up this practice and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.
Without a doubt, God did indeed provide a remedy for a dire situation as bishop Zumárraga mentioned in his letter. Is it any surprise that this remedy—in the form of the Blessed Virgin Mary—appeared on a hill that was the site of an Aztec temple to the earth goddess named Tonantzín, which translated means “our sacred mother”, to whom the Aztecs would offer human sacrifices with the purpose of obtaining a good harvest? As God often does, what was once a place of death, focused on the things of the earth, was transformed into a wellspring of eternal life, focused on the treasures of heaven.
If Cortez arrived in modern-day America, he would find the same things he found in Mexico five centuries ago: a complex system of government, sprawling urban centers, a wide array of entertainment, organized sports, advanced medicine, recreational drug use, paganism, idolatry, pantheism, earth worship, and human sacrifice. Ohio lost the Issue 1 election last month because we are currently a pagan nation. Our society at large has its gods and goddesses, its temples and idols, and human sacrifices of the most innocent are offered to the gods and goddesses of lifestyle choices.
Like the Franciscan friars recognized, we cannot hope to change the situation, to include bringing and end to the human sacrifices, until first we remove idols by night and preach tirelessly against grave sins by day. But most importantly, we need to pray for God to provide a remedy from His hand before this land becomes totally lost. Our Lady of Guadalupe… pray for us.