Guadalupe Mysteries

Our Lady of Guadalupe is the most beloved symbol of Mexican Catholicism, and devotion to her is widespread in the USA. While she has entranced and encouraged Mexican Catholics for several centuries, believers and even nonbelievers the world over are inspired and intrigued by her. Millions of pilgrims visit her shrine in Mexico City every year. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis have travelled there to pray for her motherly intercession. And scientists from many disciplines have studied the amazing attributes of her mysterious image. In this glorious, lavishly illustrated book, the renowned author-photographer team Grzegorz Górny and Janusz Rosikon take the reader on an illustrated pilgrimage to Our Lady of Guadalupe. They tell the amazing story of her apparition to Juan Diego in 1531 and its dramatic impact upon the destiny of an entire people. They interview the various experts on the image and reveal its symbolic messages, those of the past and those speaking to us today.

Two murders, mirror image victims… one trail to the killer. Private Investigator Fen Maguire is called in to assist a new police chief solve a woman’s murder on the Guadalupe River. All evidence points to a long-time homeless person, prompting a quick arrest—but Fen has a feeling they missed something. When a second body washes up, Fen’s suspicions are confirmed, and the case takes a complex turn. Not only is the latest victim a prominent socialite, she’s a twin look-alike to the first victim. Is this a case of mistaken identity or is a serial killer on the loose? With widespread speculation in the media and city officials pressuring him to solve the cases before the summer tourist season is ruined, all eyes are on Fen and his investigation. He must move fast to connect the dots between the two mysterious deaths, identify the real killer, and exonerate an innocent man. Fen Maguire is a man who values truth and justice, and is willing to fight for it. Murder On The Guadalupe is the third book of the Fen Maguire Mystery series. These clean reads have no foul language, gore, sex or violence!

"In The Virgin of Guadalupe, Lutheran minister Maxwell E. Johnson recognizes that this tradition is important not only to Latin American Catholics but also to all Latin American Christians. Acknowledging the significance (if not, necessarily, the historical accuracy) of the appearance of the Virgin is not simply a Roman Catholic need but a necessity for all Christian churches among whom the Hispanic presence is growing.

A practical, hands-on guide to Mexican-American folk magic. American Brujeria is about the fascinating blend of American and Mexican folk magic currently practiced by those living in the US but whose roots are steeped in Mexican culture. The author, who has named this tradition “American brujeria,” explores this magical system, while also offering practical advice on using it. American brujeria is a living, vital tradition that -- while it shares things in common with other folk magic traditions, such as American Conjure—also features its own unique traditions, as well as familiar ones, such as the veneration of saints, both canonized, such as Guadalupe, and folk saints like Santa Muerte. American Brujeria includes stories from Mexico (folk saints, the story of Guadalupe), the influence of Catholicism, the art of limpias (spiritual cleansings), spell casting, oil crafting, praying the rosary (in English and Spanish), making an altar to Guadalupe, using novena candle magic, crafting protective charms from saints’ medals, and more.

The world-renowned Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe has mystified and evoked the adoration of millions since its first appearance in Mexico City in 1531. The origin of the Image has baffled believer and skeptic alike. In his unparallelled examination of the Guadalupe mystery, Professor Jody Brant Smith, equally sensitive to the demands of objectivity and reverence, diligently applies current techniques of scientific and historical scrutiny like that used in investigating the Shroud of Turin to determine if the Image is attributable to myth or miracle. Here he continues his discussion of the enigmatic origin and history of the Image and offers new insight from his career-long exploration of the Guadalupan mystery.

"Extraordinarily relevant, Mariological Studies in Honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a one of a kind treasure trove delving into the great mysteries of salvation through the lens of Mary’s maternal mediation. Eight essays relating to the Mother of God and Mother of the Church, but particularly about Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of the Americas, will stir your heart to a renewed devotion to the Blessed Mother Mary, so essential for our times. You’ll want to savor this book. Highly recommended!" - Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle, EWTN TV Host of "Everyday Blessings for Catholic Moms” and “Catholic Mom’s Café” is the author of numerous Catholic books including The Miraculous Medal: Stories, Prayers, and Devotions

"A revised and expanded edition of this seminal history of the origins of the Guadalupe apparitions"--Provided by publisher.

Defense attorney Liz Harper from Los Angeles law firm Ross & Logan pays Malone a visit with an interesting story to tell. Harper's client, bad-boy actor Zack Sinclair, whose appetites for booze, gambling, and extramarital sex are as out-sized as his ego, has been charged with the murder of his estranged wife, Holly Sutherland, one of Hollywood's biggest and brightest stars. Sinclair has no alibi, and he is broke. On the hook for a quarter million dollar gambling debt, as her sole heir, he had multi-million reasons to kill his wealthy wife. Harper believes her client is innocent, at least of the murder, and hires Malone to prove it before the case goes to trial. Malone starts investigating. The case quickly gets darker when he uncovers some ugly secrets about the deceased. His search for he truth puts him squarely at odds with a mafioso who tells Malone to drop the case or else. Malone enters into a daring game of cat-and-mouse with the crime boss, a game he might not come out of alive.

Nearly a decade after Spain's conquest of Mexico, the future of Christianity on the American continent was very much in doubt. Confronted with a hostile colonial government and Native Americans wary of conversion, the newly-appointed bishop-elect of Mexico wrote to tell the King of Spain that, unless there was a miracle, the continent would be lost. Between December 9 and December 12, 1531, that miracle happened, and it forever changed the future of the continent. It was then that the Virgin Mary famously appeared to a Native American Christian convert on a hilltop outside of what is now Mexico City. The image she left imprinted on his cloak or tilma has puzzled scientists for centuries, and yet Our Lady of Gudalupe’s place in history is profound. A continent that just months before the apparitions seemed completely lost to Christianity suddenly and inexplicably embraced it by the millions. Our Lady of Guadalupe's message of love replaced the institutionalized violence of the Aztec culture, and built a bridge between two worlds — the old and the new — that were just ten years earlier engaged in brutal warfare. Today, Our Lady of Guadalupe continues to inspire the devotion of millions. From Canada to Argentina — and even beyond the Americas — one finds great devotion to her, and great appreciation for her message of love, unity and hope. Today reproductions of the Virgin’s miraculous image can be seen throughout North and South America, in churches and homes, on billboards and even clothing apparel. Her shrine in Mexico City, where the miraculous image is housed to this day, is one of the most visited in the world. In Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love, Anderson & Chavez trace the history of Our Lady of Guadalupe from the sixteenth century to the present discuss of how her message was and continues to be an important catalyst for religious and cultural transformation. Looking at Our Lady of Guadalupe as a model of the Church and Juan Diego as a model for all Christians who seek to answer Christ's call of conversion and witness, the authors explore the changing face of the Catholic Church in North, Central, and South America, and they show how Our Lady of Guadalupe's message was not only historically significant, but how it speaks to contemporary issues confronting the American continents and people today.

An escape from the past becomes a nightmare of the present... Borderline is the captivating fifteenth thriller in Nevada Barr's acclaimed crime series featuring park ranger Anna Pigeon. Perfect for fans of Jo Nesbo and Sue Grafton. 'First-rate... Barr outshines most other authors in the mystery genre' - Publishers Weekly Drained and haunted by the killings on Isle Royale, diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and on administrative leave by order of her superintendent, the one bright spot in Anna's life is Paul, her husband of less than a year. Hoping the warmth and the adventure of a raft trip in Big Bend National Park will lift her spirits, Paul takes Anna to southwest Texas, where the sun is hot and the Rio Grande is running high. The sheer beauty of the Chihuahuan Desert and the power of the river work their magic - until the raft is lost in the rapids and a young college student makes a grisly discovery. Hair and arms tangled in the downed branches of a strainer between two boulders, more dead than alive, is a pregnant woman. Nature, it turns out, isn't the only one who wants to see the woman and her baby dead. Instead of the soul-soothing experience Paul planned for her, Anna and her husband are sucked into a labyrinth of intrigue that leads from the Mexican desert to the steps of the Governor's Mansion in Austin, Texas. What readers are saying about Borderline: 'I found Borderline non-stop exciting and also rather touching' 'Riveting... Couldn't put down this excellent instalment in the Anna Pigeon [series]' 'A suspenseful page-turner, keeping you guessing to the end. Rich characters you could really relate to, and the ending was perfect'

Jack and Ashley’s search for eight-year-old Sammy has left them hopelessly lost in a twisted maze of tunnels deep inside Carlsbad Caverns. Bats are everywhere, and the echoes of their screeching cries sends a chill through the trio. The only light is the candle in their lantern. What will happen when it burns out, leaving them in total darkness?

With a foreword by James Randi Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell has spent more than thirty years solving the world's most perplexing mysteries. This new casebook reveals the secrets of the Winchester Mystery House, the giant Nazca drawings of Peru, the Shroud of Turin, the "Mothman" enigma, the Amityville Horror house, the vicious goatsucking El Chupacabras, and numerous other "unexplainable" paranormal phenomena. Nickell has traveled far and wide to solve cases, which include a weeping icon in Russia, the elusive Bigfoot-like "yowie" in Australia, the reputed power of a headless saint in Spain, and an "alien hybrid" in Germany. He has gone undercover—often in disguise—to reveal the tricks of those who pretend to talk to the dead, accompanied a Cajun guide into a Louisiana swamp in search of a fabled monster, and gained an audience with a voodoo queen. Superstar psychic medium John Edward, pet psychic Sonya Fitzpatrick, evangelist and healer Benny Hinn, and many other well-known figures have found themselves under Nickell's careful scrutiny. The Mystery Chronicles examines more than three dozen intriguing mysteries. Nickell uses a hands-on approach and the scientific method to steer between the extremes of mystery mongering and debunking. His investigative skills have won him both acclaim and controversy during his long career as one of the world's foremost paranormal investigators.

The rosary has been nearly ubiquitous among Roman Catholics since its first appearance in Europe five centuries ago. Why has this particular devotional object been so resilient, especially in the face of Catholicism's reinvention in the Early Modern, or "Counter-Reformation," Era? Nathan D. Mitchell argues in lyric prose that to understand the rosary's adaptability, it is essential to consider the changes Catholicism itself began to experience in the aftermath of the Reformation. Unlike many other scholars of this period, Mitchell argues that after the Reformation Catholicism actually became less retrenched and more open to change. This innovation was especially evident in the sometimes "subversive" visual representations of sacred subjects and in new ways of perceiving the relation between Catholic devotion and the liturgy's ritual symbols. The rosary played a crucial role not only in how Catholics gave flesh to their faith, but in new ways of constructing their personal and collective identity. Ultimately, Mitchell employs the history of the rosary as a lens through which to better understand early modern Catholic history.

These tales of the mountains, mines, and characters of the Guadalupe range were collected over many years by the author who has explored the area since he was a boy.

The introduction of the Virgin Mary to the native peoples of Mexico is often closely associated with Our Lady of Guadalupe, the principal Mexican Marian devotion. Historical evidence indicates that the Mexican shrine was not established until the 1560s, the legend was virtually unknown until its initial publication in Spanish in 1648 and in Nahuatl the following year; and native people did not participate in the devotion to any extensive degree until after the mid-seventeenth century. How, then, was devotion to the Virgin actually introduced to Nahuas during the first decades of Christian evangelization? This book addresses this question through the presentation of Nahuatl-language devotional texts relating to Mary, texts through which Nahuas learned about the Virgin and expressed their own developing devotion to her. The wide range of Nahuatl literature on the Virgin shows that Nahuas were introduced to, and to varying degrees participated in, the full-blown medieval and Renaissance devotion to Mary, adapted into their own language. Native scholars participated in the composition of much of this material. Nahuatl text and English translation are presented in parallel columns. Each text is preceded by introductory commentary that explicates the European background of the material and its new meanings and uses in the Mexican context.

Every Spanish-speaking country in Latin America and the Caribbean has its own national representation of the Virgin Mary who is credited with helping to spread Christianity. None of these is more prominent than the Virgin of Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico. According to tradition, the Virgin appeared to a man named Juan Diego on the Hill of Tepeyac, just outside Mexico City, four times in 1531. The local bishop doubted his claim until an image of the Virgin appeared on Juan Diego's cloak. That cloak is now among the most popular religious icons in the Americas, and the Virgin of Guadalupe is among the most widely known of Marian apparitions. Our Lady of Guadalupe is also the only Marian apparition tradition in the Americas- and indeed in all of Roman Catholicism- that has since inspired a sustained series of published theological analyses. In Theologies of Guadalupe, Timothy Matovina explores the way theologians have understood Our Lady of Guadalupe and sought to assess and foster her impact on the lives of her devotees since the seventeenth century. He examines core theological topics in the Guadalupe tradition, developed in response to major events in Mexican history: conquest, attempts to Christianize native peoples, society-building, independence, and the demands for justice of marginalized groups. This book tells how, amidst the plentiful miraculous images of Christ, Mary, and the saints that dotted the sacred landscape of colonial New Spain, the Guadalupe cult rose above all others and was transformed from a local devotion into a regional, national, and then international phenomenon. Matovina traces the development of the theologies of Guadalupe from the colonial era to our own time, revealing how Christian ideas imported from Europe developed in dynamic interaction with the new contexts in which they took root.

This book examines the ambivalence of folk Catholicism as a resource to fight against injustice, exploitation, and oppression. Cases are cited to illuminate the value and potential trespasses of popular religious beliefs and practices. Over centuries, representatives of the powerful middle and upper middle classes did not hesitate to manipulate popular piety to protect their power and privileges. In fact, much of popular religion still reflects the dominant ideology. Popular piety has the potential for liberation against unjust social and economic structures. When properly guided, this practice can broaden and deepen political consciousness and mobilize people to act. Without a strong level of political consciousness as well as liberative evangelization, popular religion will be alienating to the poor while strengthening the status quo of the rich and the powerful. This study argues that it will be the elites, the well-educated and committed Christians, not the masses, who would foster the transformation of society.

If You Love Harry Bosch, Robert B. Parker's Spenser, Philip Marlowe, Jack Reacher—it's time you met Los Angeles private eye, Ben Malone. He's a street-wise, smart-mouthed tough guy, but with a heart of gold. Three complete novels, and over 900 pages of lightening-paced thrills, suspense, and action. Come What May Inspired by a shocking true story. LAPD homicide detective Ben Malone is transferred from Hollywood Division to the Cold Case Homicide Unit after being involved in a spate of officer-involved shootings. Once he comes to terms with the transfer, Malone and new partner detective Jaime Reyes start digging into a 23-year-old murder case. The deeper they dig, the more obvious it becomes that the original investigators had the murder theory all wrong. But, as Malone and Reyes keep digging up bones, it soon becomes apparent that powerful forces both inside and outside the LAPD want this body to stay buried. A high stakes thrill ride through the seamy side of Los Angeles. Fair Is Foul and Foul Is Fair Former LAPD homicide detective Ben Malone has taken over the private detective agency of a dear, deceased friend. When a drop-dead gorgeous socialite with a wad of cash walks into Ben Malone’s office with a sordid tale to tell, he does what any self-respecting private investigator with rent to pay would do – he takes the case. But soon, Malone realizes things are not always as they seem, and he may have bitten off more than he can chew. The clock is ticking. Lives are on the line. Will Malone stop this runaway train of destruction and untangle the web of criminal wrongdoing in time, or die trying? Cold Comfort One of Tinseltown's brightest stars has been murdered. The accused is her estranged husband, bad-boy actor Zack Sinclair, whose appetites for booze, gambling, and extramarital sex are as outsized as his ego. His situation doesn't look good. With next to no alibi, and on the hook to his bookie for a quarter million bucks, as sole heir to his wealthy wife's estate, Sinclair had multi-million reasons to kill his wife. But, Sinclair's attorney believes he is innocent, at least of murder. She hires LA private investigator Ben Malone to prove it.

"In this study of complex beliefs in which Aztec religion and Spanish Catholicism blend, Lafaye demonstrates the importance of religious beliefs in the formation of the Mexican nation. Far from being of only parochial interest, this volume is of great value to any historian of religions concerned with problems of nativism and syncretism."—Franke J. Neumann, Religious Studies Review

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