Latina theologians on Our Lady of Guadalupe: Rodriguez and Madrid

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Latina theologians on Our Lady of Guadalupe:a study of Jeanette Rodriguez and Nancy Pineda-Madrid

Theological analysis of the works of Jeanette Rodriguez and Nancy Pineda-Madrid and their contribution to the study of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Rodriguez and Pineda-Madrid share commonalities: both authors are women; both authors are Latino; and both have the same goal: to affirm the spirituality of the lay Mexican-American individual (most commonly woman) and to show how her union with religion is inspiring, rational, and deserving of investigation. Both also consider the Mexican persona, in general, and relationship with religion, in particular, be erroneously categorized and misinterpreted by condescending, largely masculine voices, and they endeavor to correct this through focus on the Latino's relationship with the Lady of Guadalupe.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is particularly chosen as icon since the Mexican people, specifically the Mexican female, has long had an unusual and persistent devotion to her (e.g., Taylor, 2003), and both authors see Our Lady serving as transformative icon to a troubled gender and a troubled individual. Both also see her as being misinterpreted in the popular theological sense (usually by patriarchal voices such as that in Pineda-Madrid's (2005) case, by Royce, and that her correct interpretation should follow that of the lay Mexican-American individual (in both cases, and specially here, the female).

Described in the foreword to her book 'Our Lady of Guadalupe: Faith and empowerment among American-Mexican women' as being "the best theologian that Mexico has" (23), Rodriguez is impassioned and vibrant and it is likely that she is so for she is being the mouthpiece of her people (Pena & Frehill, 1998). Another Joan d'Arc, Rodriguez insists that theology is real and that it is the people who can best mouth it. In other words, that the simple and spontaneous articulation of the people are neither simplistic nor simple-minded, as stereotypically opined, but rather express a well-ordered world vision. As Pena (1995) observes, this is a refreshing and bold statement to social scientists in that Rodriguez asserts that her commentary comes from faith, not from science, and this, in her view, best articulates the position of the marginalized and the disadvantaged.

Combining feminism with their own unique Latinidad voice, Rodriguez and Pineda-Madrid step squarely into the perspective of the Latino individual, generally the woman, and show how spirituality is genuine -- and, more so, rational - from her perspective. According to Rodriguez (2004), the Latino female displays a mestiza spirituality where as 'self in community' she reacts against degradation, stereotype, and discrimination with a praxis of love and extracts the inspiration for this praxis of love from Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Hispanic culture differs from that of American cultures in that all is synthesized and holistic, all interconnected and intertwined, and that this particular character can be evidenced in the Mexican-American's relationship to his or her religion. Rodriguez shows how, to the Latino, religion assumes an immediate and familial presence and that this is so can be evidenced by the Lady of Guadalupe. Jesus is more than a deity or a hero. He is also a brother in both his relationship to God and in his relationship to individuals. Mary is mother to the Latinos, and the Lady of Guadalupe, similarly, is their mother too. The saints, moreover, are friends of God just as the Latino individual feels that are friends of herself. To the Mexican-American, religion plays itself out on three fields: the human; the religious; and the interplay between the human and the divine. The Lady of Guadalupe, for instance, combines both. Just as she exists in the human milieu so, too, does she exist in the Divine realm, reaching, through her familial presence to the Latino, to combine and merge both worlds. She epitomizes leadership within a divine frame, and for the Latino woman who sees spirituality -- genuine not conventionalized spirituality -- in every nuance of her life, the elements of divinity and mendacity are excellently combined within the form of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Rodriguez is distinguished by not only articulating the voice of her people -- in the metaphysical sense (and sometimes in the political sense too (e.g. In her book, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Chapter 2), but she also assumes a feminist position. In her political sense, for instance, she expresses the confusion and ambiguity experienced by Mexican-Americans who are compelled to use the name given them by their 'captors'. A female Mexican-American may, for instance, might call herself Latin American in Mexico, yet in America she is referred to as Chicana. Similarly, too, many feel a conflict between their Latino tradition and between their Mexican-American values. Some may identify with one culture more than with another and the attempted synthesis causes conflict (Rodriguez, 1999). Pineda-Madrid (2008) expresses this sentiment in a different way when discussing the Latinos' 'sin of being' and of 'fully living'.

Rodriguez's theology is a mission to the Mexican people, particularly the Mexican woman. As she describes in her book:

Mexican-American women have been raised within a culture and a church, which have never taught Mexican-American literature, history, customs, traditions, or food. We have had to study about everyone else but never about ourselves. We now need to take that time to study about our origins and ourselves because "history is not merely the record of the past but the life source of the present and the hidden energy of the new future"(p.63).

The Chicano, in reality, is made up of a variegated spectrum of personalities and different character types, but Rodriguez accuses America of stereotyping the Chicano and, by doing so, reducing her into a formless simplistic individual. As excuse for American prejudice, colonialism, and discrimination, the Mexican -- American family is portrayed as dysfunctional, naive, superstitious, and primitive, and the woman is, often, depicted, as illiterate and simplistic. The reverse is, in fact, often the case. As recent historians and social scientists are asserting: the Mexican woman is a strong, independent individual who serves as the basis and bastion of her family and as transition between all realms, human and divine bridging both. She is, in a way, a microcosmic Lady of Guadalupe.

Both authors accuse traditional researchers of depicting the Lady in a traditional, erroneous, masculine manner. Pineda-Madrid focuses on Elziondo (and Rodriguez does so, too, on various occasions). Both assert that the Lady absorbs masculine traits (such as omniscience and power) in her overarching feminine form and, by doing so, transmutes them to femininity. The Lady is more than justice; she is salvation, love, and compassion. And it is the typical Mexican-American (or Chicano or Latino individual -- howsoever you may wish to style her) who possesses the truest perception in seeing her as thus: "Human liberation must include not only the pursuit of justice but the celebration of life" (Pineda-Madrid, 2005, 33), and the Lady excellently merges both.

In practical research done amongst samples of Mexican-American women on their relationship with the Lady of Guadalupe, Rodriguez repeatedly discovered that parallels exist between the stereotypes of the Mexican-woman and between the stereotyped images of the Lady of Guadalupe. In other words, that just as the Mexican woman is condescendingly portrayed by America as uneducated and simplistic, the Lady of Guadalupe is similarly characterized as a model of servility and humility. To the reverse, the Mexican woman is increasingly been seen by sympathetic voices as being a strong, driving force within her family, and the Mexican-American woman, in turn, reinterprets Guadalupe as a liberating and empowering catalyst.

It seems to me that Jeannette is trying to draw a connection here: Mexican-American woman are stereotyped just as the Lady of Guadalupe is. Mexican-American women couch their Lady in their own image so that she serves as instrument to enable them to deal with their conflict of synthesizing two contradictory cultures, one of which asserts itself to be superior whilst condemning the other as inferior. (Rodriguez, 1994).

More so, as Rodriguez (1997) points out in another essay, just as Mexican-American woman are simplified so, too, is the Lady of Guadalupe but within the Lady, within her spirituality lies leaderships skills; the Lady is the paragon of leadership, and the Mexican-American, by identifying with these characteristics, is that too.

It is interesting that both authors perceive the Lady of Guadalupe as someone whose interpretation differs according to experience of the interpretateor; that contemporary perceptions perceive her as liberator for women and that, by so perceiving her, shift her traditional connotations from masculine-based to Feminist leadership incarnate. Our lady becomes, in effect, the leading Chicano Feminist. Molina, one of the Hispanic ladies whom Jeannette interviewed, defined leadership as spirituality, and, indeed, leadership is the very essence of the Lady: therein lies the syntheses of her compassion, power, and deliverance, and it is due to that that she has won both enduing respect from the Mexican populace as well as committed affection.

Pineda-Madrid (2005) wonders how theologians can seriously consider feminist and phenomenological reinterpretations of the Lady of Guadalupe and incorporate them into their writings, but then again the Lady had become real for certain people in a very real way and, as Rodriguez (1997; 2005) has pointed out this has become a rational perspective -- indeed pragmatic -- where through the lens of the interaction of the worshipper with Our Lady, Our Lady assumes human form and reality and assuages sorrow as well as imparting strength. She epitomizes pragmatic reality, and by so doing, in a certain manner assumes tangible metaphysical form. Rather than being apart and indistinct from humans, the Lady has become absorbed in the Mexican culture and has become such an endearing figure precisely due to the fact that she is seen as part of their suffering and as corporal liberal embodied in incorporeal form that is part of -- the essence of -- their very being. In that way, she is more animate than inanimate and possesses enduring capacity.

Part II. Major theological themes that can be infered from the works of Jeanette Rodriguez and Nancy Pineda-Madrid on Our Lady of Guadalupe

Various replicative theological themes can be inferred from the works of these authors. The essay elaborates on them.

1. Empowerment:

Mary's relationship to the American-Mexican woman, i.e. As symbol that is stereotyped by a supercilious, dominating majority, but that appears to them as motherly and liberating -- is akin to the general Marian scatology in that Mary gives dignity and liberation to the oppressed in, that seen as servile and humiliated herself, the oppressed identify with her and perceive her as suffering human who withstood her tormentors in a dignified, resilient manner.

Quoting Elizondo, Rodriguez (Guadalupe: the feminine face of God) shows how "the cult not only liberates downtrodden people but also liberates us from a restrictive idea of God" (p. 28).

Mary is the feminine symbol in a masculine world.

In her book, in one part (Chapter 2), Rodriguez (1994) seems to characterize America as being a masculine-type nation particularly in its aloof and aggrandizing treatment of the Chicano. It is possible, therefore, that the Mexican woman adamantly clings to Mary (and, therefore, by extension the Lady of Guadalupe) since she personifies a maternal, feminine presence.

According to Johnson, there are five female images of divinity: mother, divine compassion, recreative energy, immanence, and divine power. For the Mexican-American woman who merges the familiar and intimate with the Divine and accords familiarity to religious icons, all five images have symbiotically been transferred to the Lady of Guadalupe. And as a whole, the Lady of Guadalupe teaches Mexican-American women that come what may and, despite the contradictory messages that they may receive from their American host-country, they are in reality "lovable and capable," and more so: "that we belong, that we can grow and be transformed and that there is a reason to live and a reason to hope" (29). In that way, the Lady of Guadalupe is Power. She is ultimate power since she accords petitioners the abilities to have power over something rather than having power with. "Again and again," observed Jeannette, " the women in my study found that in encountering and being with Our Lady of Guadalupe they realigned their sense of self in an accepting and empowering relationship" (p.30).

2. Motherhood

The American-Mexican woman is an individual who is bifurcated between two cultures, one of which (according to Jeannette) may be seen as masculine), the other as traditional and, consequently, feminine. The Chicano woman may, therefore, be attracted to Mary and perceive her in terms of a female lens, particularly because her birth- tradition is more feminine than is her adopted (and, oftentimes, oppressive) new environment.

The Lady of Guadalupe becomes identified as loving Mother and people see her "as a mother, a maternal presence, consoling, nurturing, offering unconditional love, comforting" (p.38), all qualities that, simultaneously, are symbiosis with God.

It is interesting but in this way one can see how Mexican-American females at the same time fuse, through the Lady of Guadalupe, their female-perceived characteristics of their Mexican natural identity together with the more masculine-perceived identity of their new American homeland. Religion is a close and intimate presence to Mexicans. Religion permeates all factors of their life, and it is conceivable that Mexican women feel particularly close with their Mother the Lady of Guadalupe because she evidences for them the motherliness and womanliness that they feel is part of their Mexican birthright. On the other hand, their other part of their identity, the American portion, is identified with them by manifesting God, the masculine image. In this way, both images, masculine and feminine are fused in one, as their identity -- Mexican-American, is fused in one, and here, too, we see as Rodriguez pointed out the fusion of human-divine.

What we have, in other words here, is a brilliant example of how the three separate fields play out in the mindset of the Mexican -- American woman as per the Lady of Guadalupe: 1. The human spectrum where the Lady becomes loving mother to an oppressed woman; 2. The Divine spectrum -- where the Lady is conjoined with the Virgin Mary and, in that capacity, belongs to an eternal era, and; 3. The Divine-human zone where divinity and humanity fuse and the Lady assume both factors -- metaphysical omniscient Divine power with loving compassionate care.

At the same time: 1. The human factor is seen where the Lady is identified with the Mexican component of the strong, motherly Mexican woman (as per sympathetic social scientists and historians), and seen as the antithesis of the human form of the masculine, i.e. The stereotype with which America presents itself by being an aloof rigid masculine oppressive figure; 2. The divine factor where she becomes divinely Mexican. Mexican is the symbolism of the Lady for Guadalupe, and 3. Both divinity and humanity fuse in that the masculinity of the American nation represents the masculine ethos of God the father, whilst the female character of the Latino (the Mexican part of the American syntheses) is characterized by the femininity of Mary the Mother. Via this synthesis, the Latino is enabled to experience synthesis of her conflictual parts and the two disjointed and often warring elements, American and Mexican can fuse together in symbolic divine form of harmony.

The Lady of Guadalupe, as one form of Mary, symbolizes everything that the Mexican woman has been extolled of being: creative, compassionate, enduring, and motherly bastion of strength to her family:

All that is creative and generative of life, all that nourishes and nurtures, all that is benign, cherishes, and sustains, all that is sympathetic, and solicitous originates in.. her." (Guadalupe, the feminine face of God, p.29)

3. Purity:

Harmony is also the epitome of purity. Purity signifies cleanness, innocence, wholeness, the de-contamination of sordidness and materialism. It may be for this reason, too, that Mexican-Americans identify so with her since she symbolizes the very reverse of the materialistic, hedonistically minded America that can, certainly, not be vivified as 'pure'.

Pure also represents an utter fusion of opposing forces into one. The human world may see certain elements, or characters, as irreconcilable and, existentially or ontologically or definitively apart. The metaphysical world, as represented, for instance, by Divinity harmonizes these contradictory elements into a seamless whole. This is called 'purity'. The Lady of Guadalupe signifies this aspect where, in her essence, we see seemingly contradictory elements such as compassion and divine power and might conjoined. On the one hand, Mexican-Americans intervene for her sympathy and approach her in their time of deepest stress. On the other hand, the Lady is perceived as having a certain power.

3. Figure of redemption

Through assuaging the suffering of her petitioners, the Lady can best be resembled as figure of redemption and salvation according to both Pineda-Madrid and Rodriguez, and by omitting that impression, claims Pineda-Madrid in her dissertation, theologians are doing a disservice and missing a crucial point. Redemption implies "the communion of humans with themselves, others, and God." (Pineda-Madrid, 2005, 11). Again, here we see Rodriguez's mergence of three worlds epitomized where the Mexican-American woman synthesizes separately the human and divine with conjointly the human-divine and does this through the interface of the Lady of Guadalupe. The Lady of Guadalupe serves as mediator to both gaining personal succor and relief (in fact empowerment) whilst receiving enhanced resolution and solution with their dealing with the creator and with the other. She provides a temporal aura of redemption -- not 'salvation' (Pineda-Madrid (2005) is keen in emphasizing this point -- and by doing so doing factors fragments (that of self, that of self with God; that of self with other) into a whole.

The Lady of Guadalupe also signifies another aspect of the redemptive process through her connection with conversion (Pineda-Madrid, 2005). "Guadalupe signaled the transition from brokenness to integration through a conversion process" (p.27). Conversion means more than 'simple entry into the Christian church. Literally, and on an underlying basis, it means the achievement of becoming a more integrated human being achieving wholeness with oneself and unison with one's creator. Redemption is most fittingly realized through the Lady of Guadalupe since she not only calls on Juan Diego to convert from an inferior understanding of religion, but also petitions the bishop and his household to forsake their religio-centrism and ethno as well as self-centrism, and is portrayed in a most beautiful way:

This process of conversion provoked by our Lady of Guadalupe moves forward.. not by means of threat or fear, but by the means of the power of beauty to allure and transform. Guadalupe draws people in by extending a foretaste of heaven. (Pineda-Madrid, 2005, p.29)

This is what is called true redemption. And this kind of redemption, suggests Pineda-Madrid (2005) transcends the patriarchal type offered by men such as Alizondo and Royce. By seeing the Lady of Guadalupe -- and her redemption (or salvation, as they style it) in a male patriarchal masculine figure, they are misconstruing redemption. Redemption is more than that. It comes about in a motherly, recreative, transforming and holistic manner, and, therefore, is feminine, more than masculine. The average Mexican-American female (or Latino individual in general) has a better perception of the Lady and of her related redemption than do traditional male theologians and philosophers who define the theme.

The three-fold factor observed before -- where Mexican-Americans bring the Divine in the familiarity of their personal lives, can be seen here, too, as Pineda-Madrid (2005) points out. Redemption is an interhistorical process that entails the communion of human beings with themselves, others, and God. By vivifying this in a very concrete way with the Lady of Guadalupe, the Mexican-American individual is synthesizing the mundane human existence with a transcendent divinity and thus elevating Our Lady above intangible abstract form, on the one hand, and beyond mere matter on the other.

Closely allied to redeemer, is the characteristic of

4. Leader

As mentioned both Rodriguez and Pineda-Madrid see the Lady as epitomizing leadership via her very essence. Rodriguez (1997) had observed that most Latinos are frustrated with the outside forms, the empty conventionalism of their church and displace that with genuine spirituality. Attuned to the spirituality that can be found in the material phenomena and very framework of their lives, Latinos with their tendency to equivocate spirituality with the core of life and to find it in the core of life, define leadership as representation of spirituality.

In this manner, Our Lady of Guadalupe personifies it per excellence. Here is another demonstration of the tri-fold meeting of human. Divine and human meeting the Divine and coalescing with it. The human concept of leadership takes on a Divine form when interpreted as existing within and together with the central figure of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the human then merges with the Divine in the endeavor to, not only seek leadership from Our Lady, but to also imitate this leadership by reverence of her (Latino activists..)

Leadership is also seen by Latinos as recreative. It involves activities such as teaching others to be wise, producing projects and encouraging others to create and grow amongst other constructive and creative activities. Specialty is leadership since piety is the essence of regenerative and continuous growth. Women, in many ways, are, therefore, leaders in both a material and spiritual manner, but when both are combined -- as they are in the Latino mindset -- leadership becomes spiritual and Latino women simulate Our Lady.

What is most interesting here is the shift from the patriarchal male-dominant representation of the Lady as lifeless, inanimate structure to the animate, very real spiritual and charismatic being who, by her very realness, challenges her own stereotype and encourages Latino-Americans to challenge theirs. As Rodriguez (1997) observes: "The Latina's spiritual relationship shifts the male, Western enlightenment leadership paradigm" (1994, p.13).