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Summary: Protestant gringa embraces the Virgin of Guadalupe
Review: This marvelous book provides well-written, engaging essays and stories by a playwright, a commedian, a novelist, a historian, an anthropologist, and others who explain who the Virgin of Guadalupe is and why Mexicans, Central Americans, and others of the American Southwest venerate her and pray to her as their main contact with the Divine. The writers, almost all distinguished Latinos, suggest that the Virgin of Guadalupe is a direct descendant of the ancient gods and goddesses of central America, and that furthermore, she is a primary feminine face of the Divine. She may be the only appearance of the Virgin Mary to a poor, illiterate person of an indigenous people, and like the Indians of Mexico, whom she visited, she is dark-skinned. (She is also pregnant.) Her appearance to an Indian man, Juan Diego, shows her empathy with blue-collar workers and migrant laborers and with the oppressed and down-trodden. Therefore, she receives a tremendous outpouring of love and adoration, especially on the December anniversary of her appearance to Juan Diego. Hundreds of thousands in central America, Mexico, and the American Southwest hold her dear as a feminine Divine figure who is the warm, personal confidante and helper of women, the abused, and evolutionaries. On making her acquaintance, famous essayist Nancy Mairs converted to Catholicism--a feminist version of Catholicism. On reading this book, I, myself, a Protestant gringa, went right out and bought myself a humble grocery-store candle portraying Guadalupe and began burning it, in solidarity with poor and oppressed women everywhere, and to present my own, personal concerns to the Divine. Since, I've met other women who have responded in the very same way. This book expands one's understanding of culture and history and also enriches one's spirituality.
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