Every December literally millions of people set out on pilgrimages in honour of La Virgen, Our Lady of Guadalupe. This representation of the ‘Mother of God’, made in 1531, is reproduced all over Mexico. It is amazing how one image can captivate a culture.
Their motivations are mixed: some are showing their devotion to the Virgin; some want to earn favour and outweigh sin committed; some go with gratitude for a healing they feel the Virgin gave them.
Last December evangelist Ed Aulie found a group of exhausted men, pilgrims broken down as they cycled the long journey home, each with 120-pound statues of the Virgin on their backs. They told him: ‘These images will pay for the trip home because they have been carried on a pilgrimage’.
Ed put the bikes in the back of his truck and used the opportunity to share the gospel with them, which he did for many miles. Weeks beforehand he had been reading Psalm 115 which says of idols: ‘They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.’
A little boy there said: ‘And they break too! Once I was playing soccer in the house and the ball hit my grandma’s statue of the Virgin – and it shattered’!
He was initially horrified. Yet, as he started to think, he realised that all his family’s often furious accusations for not giving homage to this statue had not changed the turmoil and confusion he saw daily in their lives. Peace had not reigned at all. Yet he absolutely knew the change in his own little life and that of his mother because of Jesus.
It was a great reminder that children can see reality so clearly at times and can express it so transparently. They recognise that religious fervour without knowledge is different from the true life-changing power of Christ. They see the Jesus of the Bible – who is active, working moment by moment for His glory and our good. As Peter said: ‘Though you have not seen him, you love him; and though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an inexpressible and glorious joy’ (1 Peter 1:8).
