Dec 9, 2023

Our Lady of Guadalupe and Aztec True Myth

How the Flower World Bloomed into History in 1531

Joseph Gonzalez and Monique González

Hosted by Krzysztof Odyniec

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Summary

It turns out that our familiar narrative of the Virgin of Guadalupe, when Mary appeared to Juan Diego in 1531 and left her image on his tilma, resembles an indigenous Mexican myth. And this myth of the Flower World in “Cuicapeuhcayotl” (“Origin of Songs”) has led some secular historians and anthropologists to conclude that the Catholic version must therefore be an imitation, a fabrication. Yet Joseph Julián and Monique González concluded that the opposite was true. They argue “that God had prepared the Mesoamerican people to receive Christianity” that this Nahua myth had been inserted into history to make Our Lady comprehensible to the Nahua people—leading to ten million conversions—at a time when Spanish conquistadores and encomenderos were making a mess of the New World with their slavery and greed, polluting the evangelical work of the humble friars preaching Gospel.

Misa Azteca on Soundcloud, composed by Joseph Julián González
The book, Guadalupe and the Flower World Prophecy, from Sophia Institute Press
Missio Dei interview with Joseph and Monique González with Jonathan Fessenden
Scene from Amadeus (1984, Miloš Forman) in which Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) realizes that Mozart’s music was “miraculous,” that he had been “taking dictation” for the “voice of God.”

Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe; he is also the host of the 'Almost Good Catholics' podcast.