Fire, Fleet and Candlelight

The feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of my favourite lead-up-to-Christmas feasts, for all that it occurs in the middle of Advent, and is therefore a day of fasting and penance. It is a prefect excuse for having some Mexican soul-food, and drinking a little chocolate-- with perhaps a dash of pepper,as the original Mexican drink had pepper in it (it was also serve cold and unsweetened, but lets not get carried away here) and if you add a bit of cinnamon as well, so much the better-- Our Lady's favourite spice being cinnamon... at least, according to a book I read in high school, whose name I have utterly forgotten, but which impressed me deeply with that fact. It also is a very perfect feast day for the time leading up to the Nativity as Our Lady is expecting in that image, a thing which delights me beyond my ability to explain.

Dr. Taylor Marshall has an interesting video explaining the history of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The name predates the apparition (which I knew) and the image that gave us the name goes back to St. Luke (which I did not know).

And here is a rather splendid song in honour of Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

Ps. I do not usually succumb to impulse buying, but I did this evening, when I was really only dashing into the store to get milk. There were bouquets for sale, with a mix of red and white flowers (roses were amongst them) and lovely greenery, and in the center, a little wooden picture of Our Lady herself. So I succumbed:

With apologies for the lousy picture, taken with
my lousy little camera phone, but you get the idea.