I found this article on the ELCA website. A Presbyterian pastor of St Joseph Parish in Wisconsin who accepts the image of Our Lady in the church.
Excerpts taken from "Living Lutheran".
Excerpts taken from "Living Lutheran".
By Neddy Astudillo
As a Presbyterian pastor, working for an ecumenical (ELCA and Presbyterian) Latino ministry, the Virgin of Guadalupe was a new experience for me. As a Venezuelan, I was aware of other stories of apparitions attributed to the Virgin Mary. But I did not learn about Guadalupes until I started my work in Beloit, Wis., at Parroquia San José, a joint ELCA Presbyterian congregation where most members are Mexican immigrants.
Although stories of apparitions, theophanies, dreams and visions are not foreign to Latino popular religiosity nor to our Judeo Christian tradition (in Scripture, God speaks through angels, dreams, ravens, rainbow, whirlwind, clouds, burning bush, etc.), seminary didnt teach me how to incorporate these into the life of a reformed worshiping community. That is something I had to learn in situ.
After a year of being the pastor of San José, I realized that many of our members either had shrines dedicated to the Virgin at home or carried small images of her in their pockets, wallets and cars. I began to realize that unintentionally our church was not fully embracing Latinos spirituality. We started talking about it and inquiring about the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe she appeared in 1531 to an indigenous man, one of the earliest converts to Christianity in that region, a seeker of truth, history says. Knowing that not everyone was in agreement to have an image of the Virgin at church, much less in the sanctuary, we started looking at our own tradition. Does Lutheranism have a space for Mary?
Going through our Presbyterian genealogy was not as easy. Presbyterians had moved away from anything that looked Catholic, but Martin Luther was very devoted to Mary and considered her the mother of the church. Why then werent we even talking about Mary outside of the Christmas season? We looked at our common Scripture Moses and Elijah appearing to Jesus at a very important moment in his ministry. Was this different? Yes? No? Why?
After months of conversation, it was clear that our church did have space for the Virgin of Guadalupe. Our faith in Jesus Christ was not requiring us to abandon our Latino culture and spiritual experiences. Christ was embracing us regardless, and the Virgin of Guadalupe was pointing us to Christ. No one needs to believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe to be saved. In our church, some venerate her, some do not. She is a symbol of our spiritual diversity, respect and inclusivity, but Christ is our unifying force and is who determines our salvation.
When we look at history and the result of the apparition, as historian Virgilio Elizondo shares in his book Galilean Journey, The Mexican-American Promise, we see that the miracle that happened in 1531 was not Marys appearance but rather what happened to the defeated and slaughtered indigenous peoples those whose land and way of life had been stolen. Through the Virgin of Guadalupe, God spoke tenderly and directly to them, the downtrodden, in a way that they and the church hierarchy could also understand. This experience returned a strength and a desire to live and struggle for life to all indigenous people and Latin Americans up to this day.
Neddy Astudillo is the pastor of Parroquia San José, an ecumenical ELCA and Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Latino ministry in Beloit, Wis.
