Category: Religion

Feliz Aniversario (Happy Anniversary) to Mexico Cooks!

Sweetheart, you are my passion–I love you!

Mexico Cooks! celebrates its second anniversary this week. Two years seems on the one hand to be just a blink in time. On the other hand, we feel like we've known you forever. This week is a rerun of some of our favorite photographs, along with links to the posts where they originally appeared.

This beautiful child from Uruapan, Michoacán, originally appeared on April 14, 2007.

Pan dulce mexicano (May 5, 2007) is one of Mexico Cooks! most-viewed photos.

Day of the Dead in Morelia (November 24, 2007).

Tamales, tamales, and more tamales! December 22, 2007. The blackberry tamales in the photo are sweetly delicious for dessert or breakfast.

Hammocks swinging in Chiapas, April 12, 2008. Several weeks before and after this date were devoted to San Cristóbal de las Casas and its surrounding area.

The three-article series about Mexico Cooks!' adventures in Guadalajara with the newspaper El Mural (June 21, 28, and July 5, 2008) was filled with recipes and fun.

The Feria del Chile in Queréndaro, Michoacán. We'll be going back in August or September 2009.

Mexico Cooks! is already eager for the VI Encuentro de Cocina Tradicional de Michoacán–and it's not until December 2009. Revisit the V Encuentro, held in December 2008, for a taste of what's to come.

We're so greatful to all of Mexico Cooks! readers. From the first article in February 2007 to the honor of being named #1 Food Blog in the World by the illustrious Times of London, you've given us your time, your loyalty, and your comments. The next year will be filled with all the best of Mexico–because, we all know, Mexico Cooks!

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

7 de February de 2009
Los Reyes Magos to La Candelaria: Cake and Tamales!

Most Mexicans eat traditional rosca de reyes (Three Kings' Bread) on January 6. Its usual accompaniment is chocolate caliente (hot chocolate).

Every January 6, the Feast of the Three Kings, Mexican families enjoy a rosca de reyes. The size of the family's rosca varies according to the size of the family, but everybody gets a slice, from the littlest toddler to great-grandpa. Accompanied by a cup of chocolate caliente (hot chocolate), it's a great winter treat.

On January 6, 2009, Paty Vallejo, wife of Morelia's mayor Fausto Vallejo, served a slice of the enormous rosca de reyes moreliana, prepared jointly by bakeries from everywhere in the city.

Here in Morelia, Michoacán, bakers prepared a monumental rosca for the whole city to share. The rosca contained nearly 3000 pounds of flour, 1500 pounds of margerine, 10,500 eggs, 150 liters of milk, 35 pounds of yeast, 35 pounds of salt, 225 pounds of butter, 2000 pounds of dried fruits, and 90 pounds of orange peel. The completed cake, if stretched out straight, measured 2000 kilometers in length! Baked in sections, the gigantic rosca was the collaborative effort of every single bakery in the city. For the twelfth year, the city government as well as grocery wholesalers joined together to see to it that the tradition of the rosca continues to be a vibrant custom.

The plastic niño (baby) baked into our rosca measured less than 2" tall. The figures used to be made of porcelain, but now they are generally made of plastic. See the tooth mark on the head? Mexico Cooks! is the culprit.

Every rosca de reyes contains at least one niño; larger roscas can hold two, three, or more. Morelia's giant rosca contained 10,000 of these 1 1/2" tall figures. Tradition demands that the person who finds the niño in his or her slice of rosca is required to give a party on February 2, el Día de La Candelaria (Candlemas Day). The party for La Candelaria calls for tamales, tamales, and their traditional companion, a rich atole flavored with vanilla, cinnamon, or chocolate. Several years ago, an old friend, in the throes of a family economic
emergency, was a guest at his relatives' Three Kings party. He bit into the niño buried in his slice of rosca. Embarrassed that he couldn't shoulder the expense of the following month's Candelaria party, he gulped–literally–and swallowed the niño.

El Día de La Candelaria celebrates the presentation of Jesus in the Jewish temple, forty days after his birth. The traditions of La Candelaria encompass religious rituals of
ancient Jews, of pre-hispanic rites indigenous to Mexico, of the
Christian evangelization brought to Mexico by the Spanish, and of
modern-day Catholicism.

In Mexico, you'll find a Niño Dios of any size for your home nacimiento (Nativity scene). Traditionally, the Niño Dios is passed down, along with his wardrobe of special clothing, from generation to generation in a single family.

The presentation of the child Jesus to the church is enormously important in Mexican Catholic life. February 2 marks the official end of the Christmas season, the day to put away the last of the holiday decorations. On February 2, the figure of Jesus is gently lifted from the home nacimiento (manger scene, or creche), dressed in new clothing, carried to the church, where he receives blessings and prayers. He is then carried home and rocked to sleep with tender lullabies.

Each family dresses its Niño Dios according to its personal beliefs and traditions. Some figures are dressed in clothing representing a Catholic saint particularly venerated in a family; others are dressed in the clothing typically worn by the patron saints of different Mexican states. Some favorites are the Santo Niño de Atocha, venerated especially in Zacatecas; the Niño de Salud (Michoacán), the Santo Niño Doctor (Puebla), and, in Xochimilco (suburban Mexico City), the Niñopa (alternately spelled Niñopan or Niño-Pa).

This Xochimilco arch and the highly decorated street welcome the much-loved Niñopan figure.

The veneration of Xochimilco's beloved Niñopan follows centuries-old traditions. The figure has a different mayordomo every year; the mayordomo is the person in whose house the baby sleeps every night. Although the Niñopan (his name is a contraction of the words Niño Padre or Niño Patrón) travels from house to house, visiting his chosen hosts, he always returns to the mayordomo's house to spend the night. One resident put it this way: "When the day is beautiful and it's really hot, we take him out on the canals. In his special chalupita (little boat), he floats around all the chinampas (floating islands), wearing his little straw hat so that the heat won't bother him. Then we take him back to his mayordomo, who dresses our Niñopan in his little pajamas, sings him a lullaby, and puts him to sleep, saying, 'Get in your little bed, it's sleepy time!" Even though the Niñopan is always put properly to bed, folks in Xochimilco believe that the Niñopan sneaks out of bed to play with his toys in the wee hours of the night.

Trajineras (decorated boats) ready to receive tourists line the canals in Xochimilco.

Although he is venerated in many Xochimilco houses during the course of every year, his major feast day is January 6. The annual celebration takes place in Xochimilco's church of St. Bernard of Sienna. On the feast of the Candelaria, fireworks, music, and dancers accompany the Niñopan as he processes through the streets of Xochimilco on his way to his presentation in the church.

Gloria in Xochimilco with Niñopa, April 2008. Photo courtesy Colibrí.

Blue papel picado (cut paper decoration) floating in the deep-blue Xochimilco sky wishes the Niñopan welcome and wishes all of us Feliz Navidad.

El Día de La Candelaria means a joyful party with lots of tamales, coupled with devotion to the Niño Dios. For more about a tamalada (tamales-making party), look at this 2007 Mexico Cooks! article.

From the rosca de reyes on January 6 to the tamales on February 2, the old traditions continue in Mexico's 21st Century.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

31 de January de 2009
Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Soul of Mexico
The Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe) in Mexico City. This newest Basílica was constructed between 1974 and 1976.

Mexico Cooks! went to visit La Morenita (a common nickname for Our Lady of Guadalupe) at her Basílica in Mexico City in February, 2008. It was Judy's first visit to the shrine and I was practically bursting with the excitement of introducing her to the heart, the very soul, of Mexico. The extreme devotion demonstrated by the pilgrims to the Basílica, the depth of personal faith in La Reina de México (the Queen of México), and the juxtaposition of the sublime with the not-so-sublime made the trip well worth repeating. We're going again in just a few days.

First on our list when we visit Mexico City is always the Basílica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Once our friends here discovered that we were going, every single person's first question was, "Van a la Villa?" ("Are you going to the Basílica)"

To each inquirer we grin and answer, "Of course! Vamos primero a echarle una visita a la virgencita." (The first thing we'll do is pay a visit to the little virgin!)

Devotional pilgrimages are an everyday occurrence at the Basílica.

The enormous Basílica of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Mexico City is the most visited pilgrimage site in the Western Hemisphere. Its location, on the hill of Tepeyac, was a place of great sanctity long before the arrival of Christianity in the New World. In pre-Hispanic times, Tepeyac had been crowned with a temple dedicated to an earth and fertility goddess called Tonantzin, the Mother of the Gods. Tonantzin was a virgin goddess associated with the moon, like Our Lady of Guadalupe who usurped her shrine.

Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe is Mexico's patron, and her image adorns churches and altars, house fronts and interiors, taxis and buses, bull rings and gambling dens, restaurants and houses of ill repute. The shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, La Villa, is a place of extraordinary vitality and celebration. On major festival days such as the anniversary of the apparition on December 12th, the atmosphere of devotion created by many hundreds of thousands of pilgrims is truly electrifying.

These young sisters dressed as indigenas peregrinas (Indian pilgrims) for el Día de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, celebrated every December 12.

The story of Our Lady's 1531 appearance in Mexico is familiar to every person who lives in this country.

The Tepeyac hill and shrine were important pilgrimage places for the nearby Mexica (later Aztec) capital city of Tenochtitlán. Following the conquest of Tenochtitlán by Hernan Cortez in 1521, the shrine was demolished, and the native people were forbidden to continue their pilgrimages to the sacred hill. The pagan practices had been considered to be devil worship for more than a thousand years in Christian Europe.

On Saturday, December 9, 1531, a baptized Aztec Indian named Juan Diego set out for church in a nearby town. Passing the pagan sacred hill of Tepeyac, he heard a voice calling to him. Climbing the hill, he saw on the summit a young woman who seemed to be no more than fourteen years old, standing in a golden mist.

Revealing herself as the "ever-virgin Holy Mary, Mother of God" (so the Christian telling of the story goes), she told Juan Diego not to be afraid. Her words? "Am I not here, am I not your mother?" She instructed him to go to the local bishop and tell him that she wished a church for her son to be built on the hill. Juan did as he was instructed, but the bishop did not believe him.

Typical children's costumes to be worn in processions for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

On his way home, Juan climbed the sacred hill and again saw the apparition, who told him to return to the bishop the next day. This time the bishop listened more attentively to Juan's message from Mary. He was still skeptical, however, and so asked for a sign from Mary.

Two days later Juan went again to Tepeyac and, when he again met Mary, she told him to climb the hill and pick the roses that were growing there. Juan climbed the hill with misgivings. It was the dead of winter, and flowers could not possibly be growing on the cold and frosty mountain. At the summit, Juan found a profusion of roses, an armful of which he gathered and wrapped in his tilma (a garment similar to a poncho). Arranging the roses, Mary instructed Juan to take the tilma-encased bundle to the bishop, for this would be her sign.

When the bishop unrolled the tilma, he was astounded by the presence of the flowers. They were roses that grew only in Spain. But more truly miraculous was the image that had mysteriously appeared on Juan Diego's tilma. The image showed the young woman, her head lowered demurely. Wearing a crown and flowing gown, she stood upon a half moon. The bishop was convinced that Mary had indeed appeared to Juan Diego and soon thereafter the bishop began construction of the original church devoted to her honor.

The original tilma worn by Juan Diego still hangs above the altar in the Basílica. Venerated by millions of pilgrams, the maguey cactus fiber tilma shows no wear after 477 years.

News of the miraculous apparition of the Virgin's image on a peasant's tilma spread rapidly throughout Mexico. Indians by the thousands came from hundreds of miles away to see the image, now hanging above the altar in the new church. They learned that the mother of the Christian God had appeared to one of their own kind and spoken to him in his native language. The miraculous image was to have a powerful influence on the advancement of the Church's mission in Mexico. In only seven years, from 1532 to 1538, more than eight million Indians were converted to Christianity.

The shrine, rebuilt several times over the centuries, is today a great Basílica with a capacity for 50,000 pilgrims.

Juan Diego's tilma is preserved behind bulletproof glass and hangs twenty-five feet above the main altar in the basilica. For more than 477 years the colors of the image have remained as bright as if they were painted yesterday, despite being exposed for more than 100 years following the apparition to humidity, smoke from church candles, and airborne salts.

From the sublime to the not-so-sublime: these key ring-bottle openers for sale in the trinket bazaar outside the Basílica bear various images of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.

The coarsely-woven cactus cloth of the tilma, a cloth considered to have a life expectancy of about 40 years, still shows no evidence of decay. The 46 stars on her gown coincide with the position of the constellations in the heavens at the time of the winter solstice in 1531. Scientists have investigated the nature of the image and have been left with nothing more than evidence of the mystery of a miracle. The dyes forming her portrait have no base in the elements known to science.

The origin of the name Guadalupe has always been a matter of controversy. It is believed that the name came about because of the translation from Nahuatl to Spanish of the words used by the Virgin during the apparition. It is believed that she used the Nahuatl word coatlaxopeuh which is pronounced "koh-ah-tlah-SUH-peh" and sounds remarkably like the Spanish word Guadalupe. 'Coa' means serpent, 'tla' can be interpreted as "the", while 'xopeuh' means to crush or stamp out. This version of the origin would indicate that Mary must have called herself "she who crushes the serpent," a Christian New Testament reference as well as a a reference to the Aztec's mythical god, The Plumed Serpent.

In February, we took the Metrobus to La Villa, a journey of about an hour from the neighborhood called La Condesa, where we were staying with friends, to the far northern part of the city. The Metrobus left us just two blocks from the Basílica.

Pope John Paul II made five official visits to Mexico. To many Mexicans, he continues to be the true Pope, Mexico's Pope. This image of Pope John Paul II, protected by and devoted to Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe is found in both pictures and figures. It is still displayed in many Mexican homes.

The street and the bridge to the Basílica are filled chock-a-block with booths selling souvenirs of La Villa. Everything that you can think of (and plenty you would never think of) is available: piles of t-shirts with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe and that of Juan Diego, CDs of songs devoted to her, bandanna-like scarves with her portrait, eerie green glow-in-the-dark figurines of her, key chains shaped like the Basílica, statues of La Virgencita in every size and quality, holy water containers that look like her in pink, blue, silver, and pearly white plastic, religious-theme jewelry and rosaries that smell of rose petals, snow globes with tiny statues of La Guadalupana and the kneeling Juan Diego that are dusted with stars when the globes are shaken.

In front of the Basílica, you can have your picture taken next to her image and with a variety of horses. The caption on the yellow sign reads, "A Memento of My Visit to the Basílica of Guadalupe".

There are booths selling freshly arranged flowers for pilgrims to carry to the shrine. There are booths selling soft drinks, tacos, and candy. Ice cream vendors hawk paletas (popsicles). Hordes of children offer chicles (chewing gum) for sale. We were jostled and pushed as the crowd grew denser near the Basílica.

Is it tacky? Yes, without a doubt. Is it wonderful? Yes, without a doubt. It's the very juxtaposition of the tourist tchotchkes with the sublime message of the heavens that explains so much about Mexico. We needed to buy several recuerdos (mementos) for our friends in Morelia, but we were hard-pressed to decide what to choose. Some pilgrims buy before going into the Basílica so that their recuerdos can be blessed by a priest, but we decided to wait until after visiting the Virgin to do our shopping. When we finished shopping, we discovered that a priest was stationed in a nearby booth to bless late purchases.

The 17th Century Basílica is sinking into Mexico City's shifting subsoil. The new Basílica is built in the same plaza.

The present church was constructed on the site of the 16th-century Old Basílica, the one that was finished in 1709. When the Old Basílica became dangerous due to the sinking of its foundations, a modern structure called the new Basílica was built nearby. The original image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is now housed above the altar in this new Basílica.

Built between 1974 and 1976, the new Basílica was designed by architect Pedro Ramírez Vásquez. Its seven front doors are an allusion to the seven gates of Celestial Jerusalem referred to by Christ. It has a circular floor plan so that the image of the Virgin can be seen from any point within the building. An empty crucifix symbolizes Christ's resurrection. The choir is located between the altar and the churchgoers to indicate that it, too, is part of the group of the faithful. To the sides are the chapels of the Santísimo Sacramento (the Blessed Sacrament) and of Saint Joseph.

Last February, on an ordinary day at the beginning of Lent, we entered the Basílica as one Mass was ending and another was beginning. Thirty Masses are often celebrated during the course of any day. Pilgrims pour in to place baskets of flowers on the rail around the altar. People filled the pews and were standing 10-deep at the back of the church. There were lines of people waiting to be heard in the many confessionals.

We stood for a bit and listened to what the priest was saying. "La misa de once ya se terminó. Decidimos celebrar otra misa ahora a las doce por tanta gente que ha llegado, por tanta fe que se demuestra" ("The eleven o'clock Mass is over. We have decided to celebrate another Mass at 12 o'clock because so many people have arrived, because of so much faith being demonstrated.")

Priests celebrate as many as 30 Masses every day of the year.

Making our way through the crowd, we walked down a ramp into the area below and behind the altar. Three moving sidewalks bore crowds of pilgrims past the gold-framed tilma. Tears flowed down the cheeks of some; others made the sign of the cross as they passed, and one woman held her year-old baby up high toward the Virgin. Most people moved from one of the moving sidewalks to another in order to be able to have a longer visit with the Mother of Mexico.

When I visited several years ago, there were only two moving sidewalks. Now there are three. Behind them was space for the faithful to stand and reflect or pray for a few minutes. The crush of visitors last February required that the space be devoted to movement rather than reflection and rest.

We walked to the back of the Basílica to look at a large bronze crucifix exhibited in a glass case. The crucifix, approximately 3 feet high, is bent backward in a deep arch and lies across a large cushion. According to the placard and the photos from the era, in 1921 a bouquet of flowers was placed directly on the altar of the Old Basílica beneath the framed tilma. It was later discovered that the floral arrangement was left at the altar by an anarchist who had placed a powerful dynamite bomb among the flowers. When the bomb detonated, the altar crucifix was bent nearly double and large portions of the marble altar were destroyed. Nevertheless, no harm came to the tilma and legend has it that the crucified Son protected his Mother.

After a while, we reluctantly left the Basílica. With a long backward glance at the tilma, we stepped out into the brilliantly sunny Mexico City afternoon. The throngs in the Basílica atrium still pressed forward to visit the shrine.

We stopped in some of the enclosed shops at sidewalk level and then continued over the bridge through the booths of mementos. After we bought small gifts, we moved away to hail a taxi. My heart was still in the Basílica, with our Mother.

Take your pick: hundreds of statues of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe await you in the shops outside the Basílica.

The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe falls on December 12 each year. Think about her just for a moment as you go about your day. After all, she's the Queen of Mexico and the Empress of the Americas.

How to get there once you're in Mexico City:
- From the Centro Histórico (Historic Downtown) take Metro Line 3 at Hidalgo and transfer to Line 6 at Deportivo 18 de Marzo. Go to the next station, La Villa Basílica. Then walk north two busy blocks until reaching the square.
- Take the Metrobus north to Indios Verdes from any of its stops. Walk two blocks to the right until you get to the Basílica.
- From the Hidalgo Metro station take a microbus to La Villa.
- From Zona Rosa take a pesero (microbus) along Reforma Avenue, north to the stop nearest the Basílica.
- Or take a taxi from your hotel, wherever it is in the city. Tell the driver, "A La Villa, por favor. Vamos a echarle una visita a la Virgencita." ("To the Basílica, please. We're going to make a visit to the little Virgin.")
*Today's article is a revised version of The Heart of Mexico, Mexico Cooks!, 12/8/2007, and includes all new photos.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.
13 de December de 2008
Día de los Muertos en Michoacán (Day of the Dead in Michoacán), Part 2

There's always a new wrinkle in hand-made sugar mementos made for each November's Día de los Muertos. All of the photos are of regional specialty items made in Pátzcuaro. These bottles are (left to right) Cazadores tequila, Bacardí rum, and Pedro Domecq brandy. The nearly life size bottles are decorated with icing, down to the last detail of the labels.

Today's sugar skulls, angels, and other sugar figures were, in bygone years, made of wood and clay. Because wood and clay were so expensive and difficult to work with, artisans searched for materials that not only cost less but were easier to handle. Sugar proved to be ideal.

A sugar skull, two angels, and a pink-spotted pig wait for customers, side by side on the artisan's shelf.

The sugar figures are formed and allowed to harden in molds, then hand-decorated with stiff confectioner's icing. The artisan uses a small plastic bag to hold the icing, squeezing tiny lines of decor onto the figures from a hole cut in the corner of the bag.

These life-size fruits are made entirely of sugar.

Artisans report that the preparation and organization for sugar figure sales during the Día de los Muertos festivities begins in January, nearly an entire year before the holiday. Due to the scarcity of molds for the sugar and the need to allow the sugar to dry to the necessary consistency for decorating, making the figures is the work of many months.

These figures represent the Purhépecha indigenous population of the Lake Pátzcuaro region. The woman wears her typical skirt, blouse, and rebozo (a type of shawl) and holds a plate of lake white fish, a regional culinary specialty. The man beside her wears typical clothing and a large sombrero.

Average prices for sugar figures are: catrina (skeletal female figure), 45 pesos; coffins, 6 and 8 pesos; large granulated sugar skull, 50 pesos. More elaborate sugar figures, such as the two in the photo above, are approximately 60-80 pesos apiece.

Sugar fish!

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

8 de November de 2008
Sin Maíz, No Hay País: Without Corn, There is No Country

Yumil Kaxob, the Mayan corn god.

Mexico is corn, corn is Mexico.   From prehistoric times, Mexico has produced corn to feed its people. Archaeological remains of early corn ears found in the Oaxaca Valley date as far back as 3450 B.C. Ears found in a cave in Puebla date to 2750 B.C.

Diego Rivera, Festival de Maíz, 1923-24.

Around 1500 B.C. the first evidence of large-scale land
clearing for milpas appears.
Indian farmers still grow corn in a milpa, (corn field),
planting a dozen crops together, including corn, melon, tomatoes, sweet potato, and varieties of squash and beans.
Some of these plants lack nutrients which others have in abundance,
resulting in a powerful, self-sustaining symbiosis between all
plants grown in the milpa. The milpa is therefore seen by some
as one of the most successful human inventions – alongside corn.¹

Listen as this group from Burgos, Tamaulipas, sings Las Cuatro Milpas, a song from the early 20th Century: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se4OcLbFuFg.

The song's sad verses recount the loss of a family's home and its milpas.

         "Only four cornfields remain
          Of the little ranch that was mine,
      And that little house, so white and beautiful
          Look how sad it is!

        Loan me your eyes, my brown woman,
          I'll carry them in my soul,
          And what do they see over there?
         The wreckage of that little house,
         So white and beautiful–
       It's so sad!

   The stables no longer shelter cattle,
        Everything is finished! Oh, Oh!
        Now there are no pigeons, no fragrant herbs,
      Everything is finished!

    Four cornfields that I loved so much,
      My mother took care of them, Oh!
If you could just see how lonely it is,
      Now there are no poppies and no herbs!"

The family-owned milpa is quickly disappearing from Mexico's flatlands and hillsides, giving way to agro-business corn farming. Today, Mexico's corn industry produces more than 24 million tons of white corn a year. Nearly half again that amount is imported from other countries. The imports are primarily yellow corn used to feed animals.

Woman blowing on corn as she puts it in the fire– so that the corn will not be afraid of the heat. Florentine Codex, Fray Bernardino Sahagún, third quarter 16th Century.

According to the Popul Vuh, the Mayan
creation story, humans were created from corn. Do you know the story?

At first, there were only the sky and the sea. There was not one bird, not one animal. There was not one mountain. The sky and the sea were alone with the Maker. There was no one to praise the Maker's names, there was no one to praise the Maker's glory.

Traditional milpa (cornfield) in the mountains of central Mexico.

The Maker said the word, "Earth," and the earth rose, like a mist from the sea. The Maker only thought of it, and there it was.

The Maker thought of mountains, and great mountains came. The Maker thought of trees, and trees grew on the land.

The Maker made the animals, the birds, and all the many creatures of the Earth.

Masa tricolor (three-color corn dough) ground by hand using the metate y mano.

The Maker wanted a being in his likeness. First the Maker used dirt to create a Human, but
made of mud and earth. It didn't look very good. Dry, it crumbled and wet, it softened. It looked lopsided and twisted. It only spoke nonsense. It could not multiply. So the Maker tried again.

Our Grandfather and Our Grandmother, the wise deities of the Sun and Moon, were summoned. "Determine if we should carve people from wood," commanded the Maker.

They answered,
"It is good to make your people with wood. They will speak your name.
They will walk about and multiply."

"So be it," replied the Maker. And as the words were spoken, it was done. The doll-people were made with faces carved from wood. They had children. But they had no blood, no sweat. They had nothing in their minds. They had no respect for the Maker or the creations of the Maker. They just walked about, accomplishing nothing.

"This is not what I had in mind," said the Maker, and destroyed the wooden people.

In Michoacán, unfilled tamales called corundas are eaten with churipo, a richly delicious beef and cabbage soup.

The Maker sat and contemplated the ears of corn, the kernels of the ears. The Maker thought, "What comes from this nourishing life will be my people," and the Maker ground the corn, ground the corn and formed Man and Woman. On the first day, when Man and Woman, formed from corn, awakened, they rose up praising the Maker's name and giving thanks for their lives. They bore children, they praised the Maker as they planted corn and tended the crop. They were made in the Maker's image, born from corn. The Maker and his people rejoiced in one another."

Stone image of Yumil Kaxob. Photo courtesy of Michael Martin.²

Imagine an entire people formed from corn, formed to honor the seed, the earth, the plant, the crop! Corn cannot grow without human intervention; ancient Mesoamerican humanity could not have existed without corn. Spiritual planting rituals continue to be celebrated in the milpas every chosen planting day.

Corn is still the staple food of Mexico. Nixtamal (dried dent corn soaked in water and cal, builder's lime) is corn's basic currency. Nixtamal is the starting point for the tortilla, the tamal, the corunda, the sope, the cup of atole, and a myriad of other masa-based preparations.

This poster advertises a conference about "Nuestro Maíz" (Our Corn) held on June 3, 2008 at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua, Mexico.

As Mexico changes, corn production also changes. NAFTA and globalization have affected Mexico's corn industry, as has genetic modification of corn itself. Is corn food, or is corn fuel for vehicles? Argument rages about the future of Mexico's corn. There is, however, no doubt: sin maíz, no hay país. Without corn, there is no country.

1. http://www.philipcoppens.com/maize.html
2. http://www.pbase.com/pinemikey/image/85632845

14 de June de 2008
Crafts, Food and Mayan Culture in Zinacantán, Chiapas: Part Two

If you have not yet read Part One of Mexico Cooks! visit to San Lorenzo Zinacantán, please see the article dated March 1, 2008.

One of several Centros de Artesanía (craft stores) in the town of San Lorenzo Zinacantán, Chiapas.

As we drove into Zinacantán, we noticed many large invernaderos (greenhouses) here and there on the mountain slopes. In addition to the work of artesanía, there is a large
flower-growing industry in the town. Roses, daisies, chrysanthemums
and other flowers grow profusely in greenhouses that dot the hillsides
around this tiny town in a valley. The flowers are produced for use in the town as well as for export.

When Mexico Cooks! arrived in the town center, the parish church bells were ringing over and over again–Clang! Ca-CLANG! Clang! Clang! Ca-clang!–in a pattern that was neither the usual call to Mass nor the clamor (the mournful ring that indicates a parishioner has died). Although the Centros de Artesanía
(crafts centers) beckoned and we had really come to shop, we decided to
answer the call of the bells and visit the church first. Many
villagers crowded the entryway, watching one of the most beautiful
processions I’ve seen in Mexico. No photographs are permitted in
either the church atrium or the church itself, and I wished so deeply
that I had the talent to draw what we were watching.

Young men wearing white cotton shorts embroidered along the hems, thickly furry woven wool cotones, beribboned pañuelos
and straw hats processed from a shadowy side chapel carrying huge
wicker baskets filled to overflowing with every color rose petal. The
procession came slowly, these young zinacantecos scattering
thousands and thousands of petals throughout the candlelit main part of
the church. The wooden floor disappeared under a pink, yellow, red,
and white carpet. Other men wearing ritual black or white woolen cotones followed, stepping reverently on the rose petals, releasing their scent into the air along with the scent of copal burning in the clay incensarios (incense burners) they waved high above their heads.

Then followed twelve highly honored town elders dressed in even more
elaborate ritual clothing bearing three life-size statues on their
shoulders. The statues, each dressed in the finest ropa típica zinacanteca,
represented the Virgin Mary, Jesus, and San Lorenzo, the patron of
Zinacantán. The tremendous statues processed, crowned with gold and
surrounded by candles and artfully arranged flowers of every
description. The three saints gently tipped this way and that on the shoulders of their
bearers as they moved through the nave of the church.

The first young
men of the procession rained thousands more rose petals on the statues
as they wended their way slowly through the small church and back into
the half-light of the side chapel, where the saints were situated in
places of honor in front of the communion rail and altar.

This image, taken inside Templo Santo Domingo in San Cristóbal de
las Casas, Chiapas, shows candles similar to those lit before the
saints in Templo San Lorenzo, Zinacantán.

Beneath swooping banners, strings of brightly colored metal
ornaments, and tired-out balloons from prior fiestas, church elders lit
hundreds of candles to honor the three saints. Men clad in garments
resembling ribbon-festooned woolly black or white sheep hurried back
and forth placing candles in large stands, stopping to kneel and pray
aloud in Tzotzil. Meantime, women elders clad in brilliant blue and
teal embroidered chales (shawls) crouched on the church floor. Ritual white cotton rebozos covered
their heads and faces, leaving only their black eyes visible, watching
the men. The men lit candles and more candles. Young boys left
greenery around the statues. In the dimness, a solemn father pinched
his laughing son’s ear to remind him to respect the ceremony and the
saints.

When we could tell that the ceremony was drawing to a close, I asked
one of the elders to tell me its significance. "This is the first
Friday of Lent," he replied. "We’ll have this procession the first
Friday of every month from now until All Saints Day in November." He
smiled, bowed briefly, and moved away from me. My partner and I walked
slowly out of the church and back into the brilliant Zinacantán
afternoon light. We felt that we had been centuries and huge distances
away from this millennium. And of course, after that much mystical
time and space travel, we were starving. Lunch! Where would we have
lunch?

View of Zinacantán from the floor of the valley, 8500 feet above sea level.

Next week, read Part Three as Mexico Cooks! continues its visit to San Lorenzo Zinacantán, Chiapas.

8 de March de 2008

The Heart of Mexico: Our Lady of Guadalupe

The new Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, built between 1974 and 1976, is one of the most-visited religious sites in the world.

My head was whirling with excitement at 7 AM last New Year's Day. I was
in a taxi going to the Guadalajara airport, ready to catch a flight to
Mexico City. Although I had lived in the Distrito Federal
(Mexico's capitol city) in the early 1980s, it had been too many years
since I'd been back. Now I was going to spend five days with my friends
Clara and Fabiola in their apartment in the southern section of the city.
We had drafted a long agenda of things we wanted to do and places we
wanted to visit together.

The old Basílica was finished in 1709. It's slowly sinking into the ground. You can easily see that it is not level.

First on our list, first on every list of everyone going to Mexico
City, is the Basílica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the heart of the heart
of Mexico. When I chatted with my neighbors in Ajijic about my upcoming
trip, every single person's first question was, "Van a la Villa?" ("Are you going to the Basílica)"

To each inquirer I grinned and answered, "Of course! Vamos primero a echarle una visita a la virgencita." (The first thing we'll do is pay a visit to the little virgin!)

The interior of the new Basílica holds 50,000 people.

Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe is Mexico's patron saint, and her
image adorns churches and altars, house fronts and interiors, taxis and
buses, bull rings and gambling dens, restaurants and houses of ill
repute. The shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, La Villa, is a
place of extraordinary vitality and celebration. On major festival days
such as the anniversary of the apparition on December 12th, the
atmosphere of devotion created by the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims
is truly electrifying.

Click here to see: List of Pilgrimages, December 2006. There are often 30 Masses offered during the course of a single day, each Mass for a different group of pilgrims as well as the general public.

The enormous Basílica of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in
Mexico City is the most visited pilgrimage site in the Western
Hemisphere. Its location, on the hill of Tepeyac, was a place of great
sanctity long before the arrival of Christianity in the New World. In
pre-Hispanic times, Tepeyac had been crowned with a temple dedicated to
an earth and fertility goddess called Tonantzin, the Mother of the
Gods. Tonantzin was a virgin goddess associated with the moon, like Our
Lady of Guadalupe who usurped her shrine.

The Tepeyac hill and shrine were important pilgrimage places
for the nearby Mexica (later Aztec) capital city of Tenochtitlán. Following the
conquest of Tenochtitlán by Hernan Cortez in 1521, the shrine was
demolished, and the native people were forbidden to continue their
pilgrimages to the sacred hill. The pagan practices had been considered
to be devil worship for more than a thousand years in Christian Europe.

Some of you may not know the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe. For all of us of whatever faith who love Mexico, it's
important to understand the origins of the one who is the Queen, the
Mother, the beloved guardian of the Republic and of all the Americas.
She is the key to understanding the character of Mexico. Without knowing her story, it's simply not possible to know Mexico. Indulge me
while I tell you.

On Saturday, December 9, 1531, a baptized Aztec Indian named
Juan Diego set out for church in a nearby town. Passing the pagan
sacred hill of Tepeyac, he heard a voice calling to him. Climbing the
hill, he saw on the summit a young woman who seemed to be no more than
fourteen years old, standing in a golden mist.

Revealing herself as the "ever-virgin Holy Mary, Mother of God" (so the
Christian telling of the story goes), she told Juan Diego not to be afraid. Her words? "Am I not here, who is your mother?" She instructed him to go to the
local bishop and tell him that she wished a church for her son to be built on the
hill. Juan did as he was instructed, but the bishop did not believe
him.

On his way home, Juan climbed the sacred hill and again saw the
apparition, who told him to return to the bishop the next day. This
time the bishop listened more attentively to Juan's message from Mary.
He was still skeptical, however, and so asked for a sign from Mary.

Two days later Juan went again to Tepeyac and, when he again
met Mary, she told him to climb the hill and pick the roses that were
growing there. Juan climbed the hill with misgivings. It was the dead
of winter, and flowers could not possibly be growing on the cold and
frosty mountain. At the summit, Juan found a profusion of roses, an
armful of which he gathered and wrapped in his tilma (a garment similar to a poncho). Arranging the roses, Mary instructed Juan to take the tilma-encased bundle to the bishop, for this would be her sign.

When the bishop unrolled the tilma, he was astounded by the presence of
the flowers. They were roses that grew only in Spain. But more truly miraculous was the image that had mysteriously
appeared on Juan Diego's tilma.
The image showed the young woman, her head lowered demurely. Wearing a
crown and flowing gown, she stood upon a half moon. The bishop was
convinced that Mary had indeed appeared to Juan Diego and soon
thereafter the bishop began construction of the original church devoted to her honor.

News of the miraculous apparition of the Virgin's image on a peasant's tilma spread
rapidly throughout Mexico. Indians by the thousands came from hundreds
of miles away to see the image, now hanging above the altar in the new
church. They learned that the mother of the Christian God had
appeared to one of their own kind and spoken to him in his native
language. The miraculous image was to have a powerful influence on the
advancement of the Church's mission in Mexico. In only seven years,
from 1532 to 1538, more than eight million Indians were converted to
Christianity.

The shrine, rebuilt several times over the centuries, is today a great Basílica with a capacity for 50,000 pilgrims.

Juan Diego's tilma is preserved behind bulletproof
glass and hangs twenty-five feet above the main altar in the basilica.
For more than 475 years the colors of the image have remained as bright
as if they were painted yesterday, despite being exposed for more than
100 years following the apparition to humidity, smoke from church
candles, and airborne salts.

The coarsely-woven cactus cloth of the tilma, a cloth considered to have a life expectancy of about 40 years, still
shows no evidence of decay. The 46 stars on her gown coincide with the
position of the constellations in the heavens at the time of the winter
solstice in 1531. Scientists have investigated the nature of the image
and have been left with nothing more than evidence of the mystery of a
miracle. The dyes forming her portrait have no base in the elements
known to science.

The origin of the name Guadalupe has always been a matter of
controversy. It is believed that the name came about because of the
translation from Nahuatl to Spanish of the words used by the Virgin
during the apparition. It is believed that she used the Nahuatl word coatlaxopeuh which is pronounced "koh-ah-tlah-SUH-peh" and sounds remarkably like the Spanish word Guadalupe.
'Coa' means serpent, 'tla' can be interpreted as "the", while 'xopeuh'
means to crush or stamp out. This version of the origin would indicate
that Mary must have called herself "she who crushes the serpent," a
Christian New Testament reference as well as a
a reference to the Aztec's mythical god, The Plumed Serpent.

Thien Gretchen photographed this wonderful group of statues in Seguin, Texas for the Seguin Daily Photo Blog . Similar statues are for sale at the Basílica.

Clara, Fabiola, and I took the Metro and a microbus to La Villa, a
journey of about an hour from their apartment in the south to the far northern part
of the city. We left the bus at the two-block-long bridge that leads to
the Basílica and decided to take a shopping tour before entering the
shrine. The street and the bridge are filled chock-a-block with booths
selling souvenirs of La Villa. Everything that you can think of (and
plenty you would never think of) is available: piles of t-shirts with
the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe and that of Juan Diego, CDs of
songs devoted to her, bandanna-like scarves with her portrait, eerie
green glow-in-the-dark figurines of her, key chains shaped like the
Basílica, statues of her in every size and quality, holy water
containers that look like her in pink, blue, silver, and pearly white
plastic, religious-theme jewelry and rosaries that smell of rose
petals, snow globes with tiny statues of La Guadalupana and the kneeling Juan Diego that are dusted with stars when the globes are shaken.

There are booths selling freshly arranged flowers for pilgrims to carry
to the shrine. There are booths selling soft drinks, tacos, and candy.
Ice cream vendors hawk paletas (popsicles). Hordes of children offer chicles (chewing gum) for sale. We were jostled and pushed as the crowd grew denser near the Basílica.

The virgin's image is everywhere.

Is it tacky? Yes, without a doubt. Is it wonderful? Yes, without a
doubt. It's the very juxtaposition of the tourist tchotchkes with the
sublime message of the heavens that explains so much about Mexico. I
wanted to buy several recuerdos
(mementos) for my neighbors in Ajijic and I was hard-pressed to decide
what to choose. Some pilgrims buy before going into the Basílica so
that their recuerdos can be blessed by a priest, but we decided to wait until after visiting the Virgin to do my shopping.

Pope John Paul II loved Mexico, loved Our Lady of Guadalupe, and visited the country five times during his tenure as pope. Here he celebrates Mass at the new Basílica.

The present church was constructed on the site of the 16th-century Old
Basílica, the one that was finished in 1709. When the Old Basílica
became dangerous due to the sinking of its foundations, a modern
structure called the new Basílica was built nearby. The original image
of the Virgin of Guadalupe is now housed above the altar in this new
Basílica.

Built between 1974 and 1976, the new Basílica was designed by
architect Pedro Ramírez Vásquez. Its seven front doors are an allusion
to the seven gates of Celestial Jerusalem referred to by Christ. It has
a circular floor plan so that the image of the Virgin can be seen from
any point within the building. An empty crucifix symbolizes Christ's
resurrection. The choir is located between the altar and the
churchgoers to indicate that it, too, is part of the group of the
faithful. To the sides are the chapels of the Santísimo Sacramento (the Blessed Sacrament) and of Saint Joseph.

One of the many processions that constantly arrive from cities and towns all over Mexico and the Americas.

We entered the tall iron gates to the Basílica atrium. It was still
early enough in the day that the crowds weren't crushing, although
people were streaming in. Clara turned to me, asking, "How do you feel,
now that you're back here?"

I thought about it for a moment, reflecting on what I was experiencing.
"The first time I came here, I didn't believe the story about the
Virgin's appearance to Juan Diego. I thought, 'Yeah, right'. But the minute I saw the tilma
that day, I knew—I mean I really knew—that it was all true, that she
really had come here and that really is her portrait." We were walking
closer and closer to the entrance we'd picked to go in and my heart was
beating faster. "I feel the same excitement coming here today that I
have felt every time since that first time I came, the same sense of
awe and wonder." Clara nodded and then lifted her head slightly to
indicate that I look at what she was seeing.

Faith

I watched briefly while a family moved painfully toward its goal. The father, on his knees and carrying the baby, was accompanied by his wife and young son, who walked next to him with his hand on his shoulder. Their older
son moved ahead of them on his knees toward an entrance of the
Basílica. Their faith was evident in their faces. The purpose of their
pilgrimage was not. Had the wife's pregnancy been difficult and was
their journey one of gratitude for a safe birth? Had the baby been born
ill? Was the father recently given a job to support the family, or did
he desperately need one? Whatever the reason for their pilgrimage, the
united family was going to see their Mother, either to ask for or to
give thanks for her help.

Clara, Fabiola, and I entered the Basílica as one Mass was
ending and another was beginning. Pilgrims were pouring in to place
baskets of flowers on the rail around the altar. The pews were filled
and people were standing 10-deep at the back of the church. There were
lines of people waiting to be heard in the many confessionals.

We stood for a bit and listened to what the priest was saying. "La
misa de once ya se terminó. Decidimos celebrar otra misa ahora a las
doce por tanta gente que ha llegado, por tanta fe que se demuestra"
("The Mass at eleven o'clock is over. We decided to celebrate another
Mass now at 12 o'clock because so many people have arrived, because of
so much faith being demonstrated.")

Indeed, this day was no special feast day on the Catholic calendar.
There was no celebration of a special saint's day. However, many people in
Mexico have time off from their work during the Christmas and New Year
holidays and make a pilgrimage to visit la Virgencita.

The framed tilma hangs above the main altar in the new Basílica. Photo courtesy of Hernán García Crespo.

Making our way through the crowd, we walked down a ramp into the area
below and behind the altar. Three moving sidewalks bore crowds of
pilgrims past the gold-framed tilma.
Tears flowed down the cheeks of some; others made the sign of the cross
as they passed, and one woman held her year-old baby up high toward the
Virgin. Most, including the three of us, moved from one of the moving
sidewalks to another in order to be able to have a longer visit with
the Mother of Mexico.

When I visited several years ago, there were only two moving
sidewalks. Behind them was space for the faithful to stand and reflect
or pray for a few minutes. Today's crush of visitors has required that
the space be devoted to movement rather than reflection and rest.

We walked to the back of the Basílica to look at a large bronze
crucifix exhibited in a glass case. The crucifix, approximately 3 feet
high, is bent backward in a deep arch and lies across a large cushion.
According to the placard and the photos from the era, in 1921 a bouquet
of flowers was placed directly on the altar of the Old Basílica beneath
the framed tilma.
It was later discovered that the floral arrangement was left at the
altar by an anarchist who had placed a powerful dynamite bomb among the
flowers. When the bomb detonated, the altar crucifix was bent nearly
double and large portions of the marble altar were destroyed.
Nevertheless, no harm came to the tilma and legend has it that the crucified Son protected his Mother.

After a while, we reluctantly left the Basílica. With a long backward glance at the tilma,
Clara, Fabiola, and I stepped out into the brilliantly sunny Mexico
City afternoon. The throngs in the Basílica atrium still pressed
forward to visit the shrine.

Jackson and Perkins created the Our Lady of Guadalupe hybrid floribunda rose.

We stopped in some of the enclosed shops at sidewalk level and then
continued over the bridge through the booths of mementos. After I
bought the gifts, we moved away to hail a taxi. My mind was still in
the Basílica, with our Mother.

On December 12 the tiny and gloriously beautiful Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Morelia, Michoacán, will be in full fiesta.

Her feast day falls on December 12 each year. Think about her just for a moment as you go about your day. After all, she's the Queen of Mexico and the Empress of the Americas.

Glossary of loving terms for Our Lady of Guadalupe


Virgencita	The Little Virgin
La Morenita	The Little Dark-Skinned Woman
La Guadalupana	The Guadalupan
La Reina de México	The Queen of Mexico
La Paloma Blanca	The White Dove
La Emperatriz de las Américas	The Empress of the Americas

How to get there once you're in Mexico City:

From
the Centro Histórico (Historic Downtown) take Metro Line 3 at Hidalgo
and transfer to Line 6 at Deportivo 18 de Marzo. Go to the next
station, La Villa Basílica. Then walk north two busy blocks until
reaching the square.
From the Hidalgo Metro station take a microbus to La Villa.
From Zona Rosa take a pesero (microbus) along Reforma Avenue, north to the stop nearest the Basílica.
Or take a taxi from your hotel, wherever it is in the city. Tell the driver, "A La Villa, por favor. Vamos a echarle una visita a la Virgencita." ("To the Basílica, please. We're going to make a visit to the little Virgin.")

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8 de December de 2007

Spiritual Healing in Mexico

The road to Concepción de Buenos Aires.

The drive deep into the mountains was long, more than two hours from my home in Guadalajara. Many kilometers of the
twisting road were rough, pocked with deep potholes. I got stuck behind
a slow-moving slat-side truck full to the brim with plastic bags of raw
chicken, huge crates of vegetables and fruits, bags of bread and other
foods. I was in a hurry to reach Concepción de Buenos Aires, a tiny
town well off the beaten tourist path, where I was to meet Sr. Cura
Manuel Cárdenas Contreras, the pastor of la Parroquia de la Inmaculada
Concepción—the parish of the Immaculate Conception. I’d heard a little
about him and his healing work from an acquaintance, but I really couldn’t imagine
what lay in store for me.

When I arrived, I discovered that it was tianguis (street
market) day in Concepción de Buenos Aires. The streets around the town
square were closed, blocked by vendors’ booths. Rock music blared and
the dusty cobblestones were crowded with men in jeans and cowboy hats,
women in red-checkered aprons buying vegetables for the day’s comida
(dinner), and little children tugging at their older siblings’ hands as
they pleaded for a candy or toy. I squeezed into a parking space and
navigated through booths of bolis (a frozen treat), flower arrangements, and DVDs to get to the parish steps.

I made my way through the church to its inner courtyard, where there
was a great deal of bustle. A big truck—the very loaded-down truck I
had followed along the road to town—was being emptied. One of the women
helping with the truck explained to me that all of its contents had
been donated for the poor of the town. The food was being divided into
bags for individual families. "We do this every week," she beamed. She
led me to the entrance to the parish office. "He’s in there, just go on
in," she encouraged me.

La Inmaculada

Religious pamphlets, candles, and pictures crowded sales
shelves in the dim anteroom. What I assumed to be the secretary’s desk
was unoccupied. I waited a moment for a prior visitor to come out of
the priest’s office. When the visitor left, a gravelly voice welcomed
me. "Come in, come in."

Padre Manuel rose to greet me and we chatted for a bit.
A steady stream of townspeople arrived to schedule Mass intentions.
"I’ll close the office at 12:30," he said, "and we’ll go over to the
house to talk further. We can have some privacy there."

Just then a tiny elderly woman wrapped up in a shawl came into the
office. She was looking for the church secretary, who was indeed taking
the day off. Padre Manuel said, "What do you need?"

She said, "I’m looking for a hand."

Father Manuel held up one of his, fingers spread apart. "Here’s one."

"Ay, padre, not yours, no no no. It’s that I fell and
broke my hand, and I promised the Virgin if it got well I’d hang up a
hand to say thank you." She wanted to purchase a small milagro, a metal token that she’d hang near an image of the Virgin as a way to say thank you for her healing.

Detail above the altar of La Inmaculada.

He asked to see her hand, which from where I was sitting looked bruised
and still a bit swollen. He started rubbing her hand a little and she
winced. He said, "You have sugar, don’t you?"

"Sí, padre." She nodded her admission of diabetes.

"And I can tell that your hand still hurts. Who were you fighting with?"

"Ay, padre, I fell down!" She giggled. "I guess I was
fighting with the ground. The doctor just took the cast off and yes, it
still hurts."

He prodded at her hand with his big fingers and then yanked her little
finger. Then he prodded around her thumb and yanked a bit. "Move your
hand." She tentatively moved her fingers. "No, really move it, bend it,
make a fist, wiggle your fingers."

She did, and a slow beautiful grin spread across her face. "It doesn’t hurt!" He nodded.

Milagros mexicanos, including human body parts, animals, and other symbols.

Then he said, "How’s your hearing?"

"Ay, padre, since my husband died three months ago I
can’t hear, my ears are stopped up." He put an index finger into each
of her ears and snapped them out again in an abrupt motion. Then he
tapped one of his index fingers, hard, on the crown of her head. And
again. Then he whispered, "What is your name?" No reaction. A little
louder. No reaction. And again, this time very loud.

"Consuelo Alvarez Martínez, padre."

He repeated his ministrations, and from behind her, whispered very
softly in her ear again. "What is your name?" She answered instantly.

Then he said, "You have trouble with your blood pressure, right?"

"Sí, padre." He put his hand high on the bony part of her chest and pressed hard. Then he asked her if she got dizzy when she bent over.

"No, padre, but after I bend over and then stand up, I get dizzy."

He said, "Try it."

She did. "A little, padre."

He pressed on the bony part of her chest. "Again."

"Ay padre, still a little."

"Now try." And she said she was fine, no dizziness.

It was all very matter of fact. There were three other people in the
room, including me. She went happily on her way, saying she’d be back
the next day to pay her debt to the Virgin.

In just a few minutes, Padre Manuel finished writing up the Mass
intentions and ushered me through the church, down the sacristy steps,
and into the spacious office where he receives people who are looking
for his help. Settled at his desk, he began talking about his life.

"I was born in 1931 in Valle Florido, a rancho that’s part
of the municipality of Concepción de Buenos Aires, to Manuel Cárdenas
García and Petra Contreras Cárdenas. I never knew my father. He was
killed by eight men just six months after he married my mother. She
never remarried, so I was an only child. When I was seven years old, I
started primary school out in the country.

"By the time I was thirteen, I had started thinking about what I wanted
to be when I grew up. In those days, there were only a few options. The
diocesan seminarians from Guadalajara came out to the rancho on
vacation in August that year, and I began to be interested in knowing
more about God. I liked the catechism and I decided to go ahead and
enter the junior seminary.

"For the first two years, I studied in Tlaquepaque to finish school.
Then I entered Señor San José Diocesan Seminary in Guadalajara. After I
studied three years of theology in the diocesan seminary in Mérida, I
finished my theology studies in Guadalajara and then was sent to the
state of Tabasco. I was ordained a priest in Tabasco on July 9, 1961,
by Archbishop Fernando Ruíz Solórzano."

Padre Manuel paused and tapped a finger on his desk. "How long were you in Tabasco, Padre?" I asked.

"Sixteen years, all told. Then at the request of the bishop of Ciudad Guzmán, I came back to the archdiocese of Jalisco."

I was puzzled. "How is the archdiocese of Jalisco divided, Padre? I didn’t know there were other diocesan divisions."

He smiled. "Yes, we have the archdiocese, with its base in
Guadalajara. Then we have three other diocesan seats within the
archdiocese: Ciudad Guzmán, San Juan de los Lagos, and Autlán." He
ticked the names off on his fingers. "So I was called to the diocese of
Ciudad Guzmán and came back to Concepción de Buenos Aires on April 30,
1973. Then in May, I was called to Tuxpan to help with the fiestas of
Nuestro Señor del Perdón. On June 13, 1973, I was named pastor at the
parish of Teocuitatlán de Corona, in Jalisco.

"I was there for nearly ten years, and then I was asked to be pastor at another parish in Jalisco.

"Finally, in 1994, I was named pastor here at La Inmaculada, in
my home town of Concepción de Buenos Aires. And I’ve been here ever
since, eleven years now." He shook his head incredulously at the rapid
passage of time.

El Señor Cura Manuel Cárdenas Contreras

"Padre Manuel, many people have told me about your remarkable ability
to bring about miraculous cures. Tell me something about how that
started."

He leaned forward and looked intensely at me. "I don’t cure. God
cures. I’m only the means. As a human being, I don’t really understand
what happens.

"More than twenty years ago, I suffered a lot from terrible
back pain that affected my right leg. For eleven months, the pain was
intense, day and night. I went to many different doctors, different
specialists, as I looked for a cure, but the pain wouldn’t leave me and
the doctors weren’t able to cure me. I was desperate.

"In one of God’s mysteries that we as human beings can’t
understand, I was sent to a doctor, a specialist, in Guadalajara. He
was a trained medical specialist, but he also used alternative healing
methods. He utilized an alternative energy, he did some things that I
can’t explain even now. In twenty minutes the pain was gone and I could
stand up straight. I went back twice more, and I was cured." Padre
Manuel held out his hand and drew in his breath.

"The doctor told me that I also had the gift of healing. I told
him no, no I didn’t. He said yes, yes I did, and that he would teach me
how to use the gift. I refused, over and over again.

"Then one day the doctor said to me, ‘So, you wanted to be healed, but
you don’t want to be an instrument of healing? You wanted to receive, but you don’t want to
give back?’ That stopped me in my tracks. How could I continue to
refuse?"

I felt a chill run through my body as I listened to Padre Manuel tell his story. "Please go on," I encouraged him.

"The doctor asked me to come back four times a week, four hours
a day, for four months. He said in that length of time he could teach
me to use the power for healing that he felt in me. He taught me about
the positive energy that comes from women, the negative energy that
comes from men, and how they complement one another, the yin and the
yang. He taught me about chakras and auras, he showed me how to use
ordinary scissors to effect healing.

"I’ve talked to thousands of people since then, from all social
classes. People with health problems come here from everywhere, eager
to be healed. Now I’m only able to see people on Fridays and Saturdays.
Working in this way is extremely draining, very tiring.

"Recently a family brought one of their daughters to me, all the way
from Texas. When she came, she was walking with crutches, with great
difficulty. The girl had just had an operation that cost $40,000 USD, an operation that the
doctors told the family would allow her to walk again. The
operation was a failure." Padre Manuel pointed to my left. "Look, those
are her crutches. When she left here, she could walk as well as you
can."

I felt the sharp sting of tears in my eyes. "A friend of mine
came to you a few years ago, with terrible back pain. Maybe you
remember him—Eufemio García?" Padre Manuel nodded.

I reminisced about his story. "Eufemio had rescued an enormous old
crippled dog that had to be bathed frequently to keep her from smelling
bad. He used to strip down and hose her off in his patio so he wouldn’t
make such a mess in his house. One evening he bathed her, let her in
the house onto the tile floors, and she slipped and couldn’t get up. Eufemio tried to lift her and he slipped, doing the splits on the tiles.
Not only had he pulled his muscles, but he developed a bad back injury
that prevented him from taking anything but baby steps. He couldn’t
walk up a flight of stairs and he couldn’t step up onto the high curbs
we have here. Some other friends brought Eufemio up to
Concepción de Buenos Aires to see you."

Padre Manuel took up the thread of the story. "You know, I cure
using scissors. Of course the scissors never touch the person, but they
draw energy and cut pain and—well, we don’t know exactly how it works,
but it does. If I remember your friend, he’s a big man, right?"

"Yes, Padre, he’s well over six feet tall. Not as tall as you are, but tall."

Padre Manuel nodded. "I would have had him stand in front of me
while I passed the scissors over his head, his neck, and down his back.
It doesn’t sound so impressive or important, but what did he tell you
happened to him?"

"He told me that he could have sworn you pressed the scissors
against his body as you worked with him. He said he felt their
pressure, but one of his friends who was here that day insists that the scissors never touched him. He felt
them move over his body in just the way that you described."

The priest nodded again. "She’s right, the scissors never touched him. What else did he tell you?"

I thought for a moment. "He said that the pain lessened
immediately. He said you told him to bend and touch his toes. He could
do it, and there was no pain. Then you asked him to do some knee bends,
and again there was no problem. He said he could take normal steps
right away, and in about ten minutes he was completely back to normal.
He told me he took some teas that you’d prescribed to supplement the
healing. He said his pain never came back and he’s had no problem with
his back since then."

Once again Padre Manuel nodded. "That’s excellent, I’m so glad to hear it. Tell your friend to treasure his health.

Blue agave–tequila–fields near Concepción de Buenos Aires

"You know, a Japanese woman, a chemist in Tapachula, brought her
daughter to me because she couldn’t raise her arms or use them. Now
that she has been here, she can. In Spanish, we have a dicho (saying): Querer sanar es media salud
(to want to be healed is half of health). I can’t explain the mysteries
of God in curing people of their problems, but I know it is God who
cures. What I do is work with God’s energy and the energy of the person
who has the illness. That woman you saw in my office earlier today?
With God’s help, her problems will be healed.

"Just tell people that it is God who heals, it’s not me." Padre Manuel
clasped my hands and walked me to the door of the church. "Remember,
I’m the instrument." He bent down and hugged me. "Vaya con Dios."

4 de August de 2007