Keeping Faith With Our Lady of Guadalupe’s Image

Patricia Santana wept when she arrived to open her neighborhood grocery store on Oct. 8. On the side of her building near downtown Los Angeles, over a large mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe, vandals had splashed red paint and scrawled a satanic message.

There could not have been a worse morning to awaken to signs of hate for this Mexican manifestation of Mother Mary. That day, Patricia and her husband, Ismael Anguiano, had planned the annual blessing of their 16-year-old business, La Economica.

“Oh, Father, look what they’ve done to the Virgin,” said Patricia when the priest arrived.

“Don’t worry, my child. This was done by somebody who doesn’t know her. But God will send them the message that their mother is here.”

The message didn’t reach the culprits right away. After the original painting was restored, they returned to mar the image again. Again, the damage was removed, and again the vandals returned, even more determined to blot out the blessed symbol.

Using a paint roller this time, they covered her body with angry swaths of white paint from her feet to her face. They must have used a ladder to reach her head near the roof, careful to obliterate her compassionate gaze. Oddly, they left intact her distinctive blue veil and the surrounding solar corona.

It was as if somebody had tried to disembody the spiritual image that has meant so much to Mexican people for 500 years, since the Mother of God was said to have appeared to a humble Indian named Juan Diego. Sunday will mark the annual observance of her fabled apparitions of 1531 in what is now Mexico City. A basilica was built at the hilltop site where pilgrims today flock by the thousands to plead for mercy and miracles.

The story of Our Lady of Guadalupe is replete with powerful social messages. She appears with dark skin and Indian eyes, speaking in Nahuatl, the Aztec tongue. And she picks as her messenger the lowly Juan Diego, a convert to Christianity.

The virgin has evolved as an icon for indigenous people--patroness of the poor, a comfort to the outcast, the solace of lost causes. The devout plead with her for the reconciliation of loved ones, the relief from financial hardships, the recovery of the incurable.

Catholics believe her image was miraculously engraved on Juan Diego’s cloak. The original image is kept at the basilica, but a replica has been touring churches throughout Southern California since September. The unique copy will be featured this Saturday during a Mass at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, to celebrate her feast day. Sadly, the tour has coincided with a rash of vandalism against more than two dozen Guadalupe images in the Los Angeles area; investigators say they have no suspects.

The Anguianos keep an elaborate altar to the virgin in a corner of their store, and they occasionally find customers quietly crying there. Fourteen years ago, they also had her image painted outside the shop because so many terrible things were happening on this block of 3rd between Lucas and Witmer. They had hoped her image would inspire more respect among people.

Here, she has stood vigil over violence and observed the disgusting depravity of street life, always with that merciful gaze until she was blinded by her anonymous detractors. From her vantage point, she can see downtown skyscrapers with their corporate logos, secular symbols of our devotion to the dollar. She competes for the attention of passing motorists with a billboard selling Charmin toilet paper.

All this time, she has kept watch over an abandoned lot next door that has served as a camp for the homeless, a hangout for addicts and the scene of homicides, gang assaults and sex acts. When people are too afraid to call police, they bring bleeding victims to wait for help at her feet, a spot strewn with trash and loose rocks from a crumbling retainer wall.

Our Lady of Guadalupe was there for the lonesome death of the man who overdosed in the trailer parked in a driveway that goes nowhere. She witnessed the gunfire exchanged between two cars at the curb and watched the victims taken to the hospital, where one died.

During the day, she also sees tired workers getting off the bus at the corner. Combative drunks teetering past her and menacing men loitering nearby. Chipper schoolchildren strolling along the sidewalk and kids rushing to the store to buy Pokemon cards.

The passersby don’t turn to look at her.

Yet, the faithful still place flowers and votive candles at the feet of her defiled image, says Patricia, who plans to ultimately restore the image. They believe in the virgin, even though she’s now hidden under that futile coat of paint.

“Everybody knows what’s underneath,” Patricia says.

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Agustin Gurza’s column appears Tuesday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or online at agustin.gurza@latimes.com