Guadalupe and the Flower World Prophecy

Michelle Nott shares her thoughts on a new book about Our Lady of Guadalupe by Joseph Julián González and Monique González.

I love Our Lady of Guadalupe and jumped at the chance to review Guadalupe and the Flower World Prophecy: How God Prepared the Americas for Conversion Before the Lady Appeared by Joseph Julián González and Monique González.

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I am familiar with the apparition story of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego. She plays an important part in my own life as our little one lost to miscarriage is buried at the shrine dedicated to her in Lacrosse, WI. However, I was not familiar with the culture of the native people at the time or any of the Pan-Mesoamerican culture leading up to her appearance.

This book has changed my viewpoint on how significant this apparition was and on how present God is throughout history even for those cultures that don’t believe in Him directly. Our Lady of Guadalupe used many cultural references during her interactions with Juan Deigo to make sure that he and the rest of the Nahua natives understood who she was and the message from God she brought were so important in the resulting conversions afterwards. God truly is a miracle worker.

The authors do a wonderful job sharing their research in this book and breaking it down for the reader so that they have a true understanding of the historical culture leading up to the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They also share the importance of the role the missionaries played at that time, giving details on how they collected the facts about the native people in order to help understand them so that they could more successfully convert them. It is so interesting to see all the details lined up!

I thought it was also really eye opening to learn about a story present in the Nahua culture that was similar to Juan Diego’s story. In that story, the main character was not successful in his mission, while Juan Diego was. That cultural story also played an important role in the acceptance of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s apparition and conversion of many natives.

I enjoyed learning more about the background of events leading up to Our Lady of Guadalupe’s apparition. I will say that this is an academic book. There are a lot of historical facts, and the authors use (and also translate) a lot of the native language within the book. It is not what I consider to be a quick or easy read because of the historical context of the book and all the details that the authors have to share in order to portray the significance that culture played in Our Lady of Guadalupe’s apparition. However, it still is worth the time to read and learn something new about Our Lady of Guadalupe! The authors also include lots of images throughout which help to provide visuals for the information they are sharing.

I think that the context of this book would be very interesting to see presented in a lecture style format. The whole time I was reading this book, I kept thinking how it would have made a great topic for a college course.

While it took me a little bit longer than I had planned to finish, I did enjoy reading this book. I think it is a great representation of just how much God plays a role in our lives even when we don’t necessarily feel His presence. It would make a great book to read for a book study or even during Lent.

Ask for Guadalupe and the Flower World Prophecy at your local Catholic bookseller, or order online from Amazon.com or the publisher, Sophia Institute Press.

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