“Yes, my lord, and I fear we’ve landed at a bad time. The sky is dark, and it looks as though a storm approaches. It seems to me that the heavens are angry at what we are about to do and are unhappy with us.” — A Winter’s Tale, William Shakespeare.
The Scriptures and Holy Tradition teach us about the kinds of sin that cry to Heaven for vengeance.
In Genesis 4:10, we learn about the blood of Abel cried to God for vengeance.
In Genesis 18:20 and 19:13 we learn about the abominations practiced in Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities that gave the name to the sin of sodomy.
In Exodus 3:7-10 we learn how the ancient Egyptians oppressed the Israelites unjustly and how the cry of the oppressed reached the throne of God.
We are also told that oppression of foreign residents, widows, and orphans (Exodus 22:20-24) and also the unjust exploitation of wage earners (Deuteronomy 24:14-15) are offenses that most grievously offend God.
When I was researching the material to write a book on the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Tepeyac Hill in December of 1531, I noticed that the rulers of the Aztec Empire were guilty of all those offenses.
Human sacrifice, that is murder, was practiced in a scale unprecedented in registered history. The priests in charge of the sacrifices practiced cannibalism and ritual homosexuality. The Aztecs had conquered many tribes within a large territory that included modern Mexico and Guatemala, forcing them to provide a substantial part of their harvest, and also men and women to be sacrificed to their bloodthirsty gods. Additionally, the Empire, always in need of laborers to erect and maintain their enormous religious complexes, mercilessly exploited those in the lowest strata of society, the macehualtin or commoners, as if they were beasts of burden.
During my research I learned that Emperor Moctezuma II received various supernatural warnings about impending divine judgment. Although he listened to some of those messages, he never understood their meaning. The Spaniards arrived one day, and that was the end of the proud Aztec Empire and its abominable religious and political practices.
The fall of the Empire left Mexico in turmoil for about a decade. There were native Mexicans that wanted to go back to the days of the Empire. There were Spaniards who wanted to exploit the native population mercilessly working in the mines and fields. Other Spaniards wanted to convert the natives to Christianity and make them free and worthy subjects of the Spanish King. These groups were about to start a civil war that would have ended the first Spanish colonial experience in Mexico.
The Bishop of Mexico, Don Juan de Zumárraga was very much aware of the impending disaster but had no means to prevent it. On the evening of December 8, 1531, he came down on his knees and prayed to the Immaculata to save the poor and the oppressed trusted to his spiritual care in Mexico.
By the time the Bishop went to sleep, in the wee hours of December 9, Our Lady of Guadalupe was appearing to St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin at Tepeyac Hill. On December 12, the Miraculous Tilma made its entrance in history. The modest garment of St. Juan Diego was the instrument that God used to pacify the country and make possible the nearly instant conversion of Mexico. Ten years later, Mexico was the first nation in the Americas with an almost complete Christian population.
Did you notice how similar the ancient Aztec Empire was to our “global civilization”?
The human sacrifices of that age pale in comparison to the number of abortions performed worldwide. Their ritual sodomy was at least limited to the priestly class while in our world is actually praised and even encouraged in academic circles, the media, and government. The taxation practices of the Aztecs were oppressive but lacked the technological efficiency with which modern governments exact money from everyone at every turn of their lives.
If the sins of the Aztecs cried out to Heaven and were found deserving of the most severe punishment, then the sins of our global “civilization” are blasting the Heavens with millions of watts of amplified power.
Emperor Moctezuma did not listen and paid with his life and kingdom. In the same manner, not listening to the divine warnings in the Gospel will cost this global civilization dearly. Jesus warned them well in advance in the Gospel this global system rejects so plainly.
“If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the Day of Judgment than for that town.” (Matthew 10:14-15)
The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah did not fail to perish. They did not have the benefit of twenty centuries of the Christian message that this world rejects while embracing every abominable practice.
We are in the same predicament as the Bishop of Mexico was in 1531. We know our world is lost unless there is supernatural intervention. We must pray in the same way he did that night of December 8, asking the Immaculata to send us a sign for the conversion of the world before it is too late.
Our Lady of Guadalupe must be crying for sinners, our children and youngsters should be very well protected. We need to make conscience if a better world is to be prepared for them. Whats happening, are we supposed to give up? Jesus never did!
I knew the Aztecs were violent but I didn’t know they were that horrible. Can you point me to a source where I can learn more about the signs God sent to Moctezuma?
Yes, Cindy. You can start with my book Guadalupe a River of Light. The second chapter deals with the history of the Aztec Empire before the arrival of Hernan Cortez. A great book to read is Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Conquest of Darkness, by Warren H. Carroll, Christendom Press. A classic on the subject is The Hummingbird and the Hawk: Conquest and Sovereignty in the Valley of Mexico 1503-1541, by R. C. Padden, Torchbooks Paperback, 1970. They are all available through Amazon.
Aside from my work, most of what is written about the signs remains in Spanish only. Many of the books about the subject are more than a century old. They are all listed in the Bibliography section of my book. I intend to do a more extended study on this subject in a near future.