17 Introduction These collected homilies, reflections, and talks by Archbishop Luis María Martínez on Our Lady of Guadalupe are treasures too long hidden from the English-speaking world. While the beauty and insight of the late archbishop’s words speak for themselves, some historical and cultural significance might be lost on contemporary readers. I hope these few paragraphs will help to bridge that gap. Archbishop Luis María Martínez was born in 1881 in the Mexican state of Michoacán, due west of Mexico City. His father died when he was quite young, and his uncle, a priest, had a great influence on him as a child. He was ordained in 1904, and by the time the Mexican Revolution (1910–20) broke out, he was involved in the formation of priests in the local seminary. The brutal war claimed the lives of up to ten percent of the population of Mexico and caused hundreds of thousands to flee into exile. For the Catholic Church, however, the end of the Revolution did not bring peace. The victorious forces at the end of the long and complicated war, known as the Constitutionalists, had incorporated a number of anticlerical provisions into the 1917 Constitution,1 and in 1926 these provisions 1 Article 5 of the 1917 Constitution restricted religious education; Article 5 outlawed monastic orders; Article 24 banned worship outside the walls of church buildings;
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