[Robert Urbanek]

In a dream early this morning, I am snipping roses off a tree-sized rose bush to give to a woman. I suggest to the woman that I graft new roses onto two of the lusher branches and she agrees.

Something about this dream seemed familiar. In the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico, the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego, an Aztec convert to Christianity, on December 9 and 12, 1531. On her second appearance, she ordered him to collect roses. In an audience with a bishop, Diego opened his cloak, letting dozens of roses fall to the floor and revealing the image of Mary imprinted on the inside of the cloak.

Perhaps my grafting onto the rose tree is adding new lines of spirituality to Catholic traditions.

[froggo]

Pray tell, which new lines of spirituality was your dream self seeking to add to the Catholic tradition?

[Robert Urbanek]

Pray tell, which new lines of spirituality was your dream self seeking to add to the Catholic tradition?

Thank you for asking. New lines of spirituality will be found in this Agora section, including my posts “The show must go on . . . or not” and “Lincoln-Kennedy links are proof of God” (Feb. 26, 2020) and in the Spirituality subforum, “Growing horns,” “The Paris Hotel Dream,” and “Dream stage: Hooray for Holywood!”

In the Literature & Art section, read “The Beatles were Egyptian gods” on page 2.

Additional insights will be found throughout this forum and on my websites robertsurbanek.com and, in poetic form, at amazonzombie.com.

[Deutschmania]

From a Christian standpoint, the dream account brings to mind these two Bible passages, John 15:1-17 , and Romans 11 . According to Christian scripture, God is analogous to a gardener, and his people are comparable to branches. Initially God's chosen people were the Jews. Now, since the new covenant of Christ Jesus, those of other populations have been grafted in, by an act of divine adoption, without having to necessarily confirm to the requirements of Jewish conversion, such as circumcision. Another illustration of this was when St. Peter was shown in a vision that now all people, just like all meats , are now acceptable unto the Lord , as mentioned in Acts 10.

[Tainari88]

The Virgin of Guadalupe is an integral part of Mexican culture. Juan Diego spoke Nahuatl not Spanish and the Virgin was an Indian Virgin. Not European. It is called in cultural anthropology syncretism. Where something from an indigenous culture finds a place in a European cultural aspect of the invading group.

Mexicans worshipped before the arrival of the Spanish to the Valley of Mexico a feminine deity by the name of Huitzolapili. Who was the mother of all people. Tepeyac was associated with her. La Virgen de la Guadalupe was not about the Spaniards and their impositions. It was about preserving their indigenous traditional beliefs while dealing with imperial destructions and long and costly wars and massive pestilence and diseases that decimated their homes and land and communities.

Remember the original Roman Catholic church had to find root in Rome. Rome was polytheistic and had a pantheon of gods and goddesses worshiped in the Roman traditional religion before Christianity replacing that religion. Venus, Jupiter, Hera, Aphrodite and Zeus...all traced back to Greek and Roman religious practices from the Old World. They all had statues and rituals for worship. The RC church adopted many of those traditions to make it familiar to the old Roman gods from before the Christian sects from the Jewish Messiah who was sacrificed by Pontius Pilot and the Jewish Rabbis who saw him as the betrayer of their sect.