"The Mexican Master Symbol"

And so much more, for she is Empress of the Americas, Queen of All Hearts, because the Mother of God, the Mother of the Word, and so the Mother of the Indwelling Word, coming to live in the hearts of men.  She is the Mother of All Christians, the Mother of the Church, by way of being the Spouse of the Holy Spirit and the Mother of the Body of Christ.

So, children of Mary of Nazareth, Queen by right of being Mother of the King, celebrate!

Now and then we encounter a symbol that seems to embody the major hopes and aspirations of an entire society.  Such a master symbol is Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico's patroness--and Empress of the Americas.

During the Mexican War of Independence against Spain, her image preceded the insurgents into battle. Emiliano Zapata and his agrarian rebels fought under her emblem in the Great Revolution of 1910. Today the Guadalupe image of Juan Diego's tilma adorns house exteriors and interiors, churches and home altars, bull rings and gambling dens, taxis and buses, restaurants and houses of ill repute. Our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated in song and poetry, popular and sacred.

Annually her shrine at Tepeyac, a little north of Mexico City, is visited by millions of pilgrims ranging from the Indian villages to the members of socialist trade unions. As one scholarly observer reported, "Nothing to be seen in North America or Europe equals it in the volume and vitality of its moving quality or in the depth of its spirit of religious devotion."

Eric Wolf referred to the holy image and the ideology surrounding it as the Mexican master symbol. He identified it as a cultural form or idiom of behavior operating on the symbolic level, and not restricted to one set of social ties, but referring to a wide range of social relationships...