Roy ruiz clayton

 REVELATION...Our Lady of Guadalupe is by far my favorite work of Art...  The holy expression of faith created from a state of grace is to me the most beautiful of all art. That is the art of the Catholic Church.

   As a Catholic, I find myself at times bombarded with shallow anti-Catholic theories disguised as intellect about our art. Perhaps the hardest to take is the negative commentary about the portrait of Our Lady Of Guadalupe.

   The original displayed in Mexico City is my favorite painting.

   The story of Our Lady Of Guadalupe is hardly known by non-Catholics in the working circles I travel in. So let me give you a brief history of the painting’s miracle.

  In early December 1531 on Tepeyac hill a few miles from Mexico City, Juan Diego, a peasant in his 50s, was on a long walk to daily Mass when a beautiful lady appeared to him. She introduced herself as the Virgin Mary, Mother of the True God.   

   She instructed Juan Diego to go to the Bishop of Mexico and say that she requests a basilica to be built in her name on the spot of the meeting.

   After the Bishop had heard this apparently preposterous story of the vision and the Virgin’s request, Juan returned to Mary to tell her he needed son kind of proof of their meeting.

   The Virgin Mary then caused beautiful Castilian roses to spring from the desert’s barren hillside in the dead of winter. She helped Juan pick the roses and gather them in his tilma.

   She personally arranged them for him and told Juan to take them to the bishop as proof of the miracle.

He carried the roses back to the bishop and, with others present, un folded the roses from the tilma; underneath the roses, painted on his garment was the full-length portrait of Mary, Our Lady Of Guadalupe. Everyone fell to their knees. 

   It is this same portrait that can be seen today at the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City. S masterpiece on a tilma made of maguey cactus fibres. 

   A tilma is a traditional blanket worn like a serape, and the cheapest of these at the time were made of cactus fibre. Juan’s tilma was made of two straight pieces sewn together and if the image of Mary’s face hadn’t been tilted the seam would have disfigured it.

   The cloth is a supernatural miracle in itself, since it is made of vegetable fibre which ordinarily would disintegrate in between six to 20 years.

However it is still intact after 480 years, even the for the first 116 years it wasn’t protected by glass. The most skeptical authorities on art would ardently admit it is humanly impossible to paint such an intricate figure of beauty on this thin, coarse fibre. 

  Contrary to sentiment, she traditionally dressed as a jewish girl of biblical times from Nazareth, making her an icon not just for the Mexican culture but for everyone who wants to believe in her. It is my feeling this is the beautiful Midle Eastern face that Jesus looked at as his mother.

   The Virgin Mary herself painted this masterpiece, with symbols from the book of Genesis all the way through the book of Revelation.

   The figure stands 4ft 8ins high. It shows a young lady in a rose-colored dress with a floor-length, blue-green mantle covering her head which shades her dark, mysterious face and black hair.

   The colors seem to change and even the size seems to change the longer you stare at the painting.

   Gazing at her face, the expression never stands still, the mysterious truth of the Lord is somewhere in it. You feel a timeless, holy intuition looking into her eyes.

   Those Beautiful dark eyes that seem like they can see, making you feel as if you’re reflected in them. She wears a belt symbolizing she is with child and the rays of the sun are her halo.

   The details are highly symbolic; you could spend a lifetime analyzing their complexity. But with her hands folded, she is humble and praying for us.

   Our Lady of Guadalupe is a painting done without a single brush stroke but artistically has no equal in portraying the Madonna.

   Pope John Paul II said: “ Sacred art must tend to offer us a visual synthesis of all dimensions of our faith.”

   This artwork is at the highest level of Pope John Paul’s standards.

   To me the greatest achievement of art is to inspire and there are many interpretations of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

   And while most are well meaning and devotional, I don’t understand why people want to change or stylize this original, most perfect masterpiece.

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