To celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe today, Ignatius Press has brought out an illustrated book, Guadalupe Mysteries, by Grzegorz Gorny and Janusz Rosikon, which is a feast both for the eyes and the mind. The “mysteries” refer to the extraordinary image, imprinted on the tilma (cloak) of the Indian Juan Diego, when he uncovered it under the gaze of Bishop Zumarraga and others on December 12, 1531, in what is now called Mexico City.
Rather like the Holy Shroud of Turin, this image is indeed inexplicable to modern science: after nearly 500 years the agave material of the tilma has not decayed; the stars visible on the robe mirror the constellation in the sky over Mexico on that exact date; most strange of all, the eyes of Our Lady appear to be like those of a real person, with the pupils distinctly reflecting back those in the room who were observing her image. This last phenomenon was only discovered in the 20th century, using powerful optical instruments.
