Let Them Speak For Themselves

Last week, here on campus, in connection with my Liturgy In Culture class, I attended a wonderful lecture on indigenous roots of the tradition of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The visiting presenter, Dr. Timothy Matovina, Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, explained to us that, in addition to Spanish colonizers' devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, indigenous people fostered devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

[While he has previously published works on this topic, in his remarks here on campus, he was conveying results of his more recent research that will be in a paper he plans to get published soon. For that reason, I won't mention specifics from his research (and once his paper is published, I'll come back to this blog post and include a citation for his article so anyone interested can then read it).] 

For now, I'll just say that in his lecture, he mentioned that he studied what natives centuries ago actually said in their own words about Our Lady of Guadalupe. In those statements, indigenous persons clearly indicated that they were devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

Near the end of his remarks, he asked the question why it matters that indigenous people played this role in the development of devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe. He spoke of the process of how tradition is passed down. Partly it's passed on when people tell stories. On a related note, he emphasized that it is important to take seriously the theological voice of the people. 

The people have a voice. In particular, indigenous people, who were subjugated and trampled, had a voice back then. They voiced their devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, a devotion which we have now partly due to their devotion and passing on to us this part of tradition. Thus, in effect, the indigenous people then are speaking to us now. 

Today we have devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe thanks partly to the devotion long ago of indigenous people. Thus, as Dr. Matovina suggested, it matters that indigenous people fostered devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe because it matters how tradition is passed on to us. Tradition is passed on to us through individual voices. Thus it matters which voices we acknowledge, then and now. 

Since it matters that indigenous voices helped shape tradition then, it also matters when indigenous voices contribute to shaping and passing on tradition now. Since we honor those indigenous voices from centuries ago, we should also pay heed to indigenous voices today. We are making and passing on tradition today, and to do so with integrity, we should ensure that indigenous voices are included today.