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December 12, 2024By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press
In the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the flower over the Blessed Mother’s womb told sixteenth-century Aztecs that she was carrying the divine link between earth and the “flower world paradise.”
Before the Dec. 12 feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a doctor shared information about this symbol and studies of the image that made connections with the human body, stars and music.
In her talk, “Our Lady of Guadalupe: Where Science and Medicine meet Faith,” Dr. Madeline Colón-Usowicz, a family physician with a practice in Webster, told about the Blessed Mother appearing to Aztec and Catholic convert St. Juan Diego in 1531 in what is now Mexico.
Mary’s image as a pregnant woman appeared – and remains – on his cactus fiber tilma, which hangs in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.
Dr. Colón-Usowicz is hosting a replica of the image. Her talk Tuesday at Sacred Heart of Jesus parish hall in Webster was one of several events for this missionary image’s visit to the Worcester diocese.
She is a eucharistic minister and coordinator of Light of the World at Sacred Heart and does music ministry at St. Roch Parish in Oxford. At St. Louis Parish in Webster she belongs to the Hispanic community and its women’s group.
She worked with the Vermont-based Dan Lynch Apostolates, which coordinates visits around the U.S. for four such missionary images, and Father Javier Julio, St. Louis’ pastor, and gathered helpers from various parishes.
“The missionary images are actual color and size (4’ x 6’) replicas of the original miraculous image of Our Lady which she left on St. Juan Diego’s tilma,” says the website jkmi.com/the-missionary-image. “They were blessed at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico by the rector … to bring conversions, reverence for life, sanctity of the family and solidarity of the Church in America.”
The website says Pope St. John Paul II entrusted to Our Lady of Guadalupe the future of the Church on “the continent of America,” looked at her image and asked that “Our Lady” visit each diocese.
Missionary images began visitations in 1991 from the International Rosary Congress at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., the website says.
“Many conversions, healings, reconciliations and graces are reported,” the website says.
Catherine Grinn, Dan Lynch Apostolates publicity director, confirmed the website’s statement that “many abortions have been prevented and … abortion centers have been closed through Our Lady’s intercession by her missionary images after visitations to them.”
“I was a near-abortion,” Dr. Colón-Usowicz, who was born in 1975 in Boston, told The Catholic Free Press. When pregnant with her, her mother, now deceased, was getting a divorce and raising two children. A doctor scheduled an abortion. Having second thoughts, her mother went to a pro-life doctor who told her not to worry.
“Because of that, I was born,” said Dr. Colón-Usowicz, adding that she has shared her story in her practice, helping prevent at least one abortion.
She said she took care of her mother at the end of her life, and added, “Everything comes around – the importance of life.”
When her older sister was born prematurely, her mother, a native of El Salvador, had sought the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who is especially beloved by Hispanics, she said. (Their father was from Puerto Rico.)
“My mother made sure to raise us with that devotion,” said Dr. Colón-Usowicz, who has helped with feast day celebrations at Sacred Heart.
She said when Mary appeared to Juan Diego, Aztecs believed in an afterlife they called the flower world paradise. Flowers represented truth and beauty. A four-petaled flower, the quatrefoil, had an axis connecting earth and heaven.
Seeing a quatrefoil at the womb, on the gown of the pregnant woman on the tilma, Aztecs realized her unborn Child was the way to enter paradise. They concluded he was the God of Spanish conquerors, who wore a cross like Our Lady of Guadalupe wears.
Doctors' measurements showed Mary to be about nine months pregnant in the image, appropriate for December, when Jesus’ birth is celebrated, Dr. Colón-Usowicz noted.
She said studies of Mary’s eyes showed them to be like human eyes, with human beings reflected in them, some of them thought to be those present when the image was revealed, as if she was there looking at onlookers.
An astronomer studied the stars on Mary’s mantle, Dr. Colón-Usowicz said. A map of the stars as they appeared on Dec. 12, 1531, the date the image appeared, was inverted and laid over the image. The stars lined up – from the perspective of someone looking down on them from heaven. Constellations not depicted on the image included ones with names meaning crown and virgin.
A mathematician found perfect symmetry of stars and flowers on Mary’s garments and assigned notes to them, forming music, Dr. Colón-Usowicz said. Her husband, James Usowicz, played a recording of part of it.
She said millions converted to Catholicism in the Americas after Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared, in contrast to those leaving the Church during the Reformation in Europe.
“Her work continues” to bring her eucharistic Son to the world, Dr. Colón-Usowicz said.
Sacred Heart parishioner Rita Lafortune said after the talk, “It deepens your love and understanding and commitment to the faith.”
– The image is here through Dec. 16. Those interested in scheduling a visit can contact the host at mcolonusowicz@gmail.com or 774-454-4997.
