Milagros
Page 3
Think of your journey as being like a pilgrimage.
CHAPTER FIVE
MOUTH
OUR WORDS ARE AS GOOD AS OUR DEEDS
OUR MOUTHS ARE the portals out of which we express our thoughts and feelings, and through which we receive our daily sustenance. Remember that your mouth is the way you communicate with your body. Stay healthy by eating nutritious food, speaking well of others, and knowing when to say nothing at all.
Mouth milagros often are representations of straight and perfectly formed teeth and gums. These milagros are offered for aid in tooth diseases such as cavities and decay, which can be portrayed by engraving along the gum area of the milagro. Sometimes sets of dentures are found at sacred sites; but, considering the importance of a good set of teeth, it is likely that such gifts are made after the wearer’s death, in gratitude for a happy life.
In milagros tradition, representations of mouths and lips are rarer than those of other body parts, since diseases and misfortunes associated with areas such as the heart and feet usually command more attention. But even though lip milagros are a rarity, the lips still play a major role: One of the most affecting customs associated with presenting a milagro is the kiss, either to the milagro itself or to the saint’s statue. It is quite common to see a petitioner present an offering, say a silent prayer, and then kiss the milagro. As a farewell gesture or as a very personal way of sealing a promise, the kiss expresses our deepest emotions and personalizes our faith.
Su boca es para comunicarse.
Your mouth is for communicating.
BODY
IF YOU ARE plagued by ailments of the gums, teeth, or mouth, take some time to consider what these problems may be telling you about your life. Are you doing your part to keep your mouth free from tooth decay and gum disease by eating nutritious foods? Or do you grab quick snacks of sugary foods because you don’t have time to sit down to a real meal? You may be so rushed during the day that at night, even when you are asleep, you are stressed out. Teeth-grinding is a painful result of unresolved anxiety.
Mouth milagros have been used to cure more tangible problems as well as anxiety-created ones. A woman in her mid-forties wanted desperately to become pregnant, so she offered milagros and prayed to the Virgin Mary. The woman eventually became pregnant and had a little boy, but his jaw was malformed. Convinced that she had received something she shouldn’t have asked for, the woman began offering mouth milagros to the Virgin every week. After six months, a surgical team from the United States visited her village and offered to repair her son’s deformity. The woman remains convinced that her prayers would not have been answered had she not been persistent and generous with her milagros.
Your mouth is the way you communicate with your body.
Look to your mouth milagro as a symbol of the sacred trust you have to your own body. Use it to focus: Sit quietly at your dining table and contemplate the meal you are about to eat. Ensure that you remain healthy by making sure the food you eat is nutritious. Hang the mouth milagro where you can see it when you eat and you will remember that your mouth is the way you communicate with your body—be nice to yourself and keep yourself healthy.
El hablar sin cuidado puede lástimarle a usted y a otros.
Careless talk can hurt yourself and others.
MIND
LANGUAGE IS ONE of our most powerful tools; give your own words the same sanctity a prayer would have, and employ them just as carefully. Just as in prayer, your words should aim to bring joy, solace, or knowledge.
Listening to yourself talk is an easy way to discover the message you are sending out to the world. Don’t forget that what you say is a potent reminder to others of your thoughts and beliefs—even if you don’t consider what you are saying to be important, someone else might. Never underestimate the effect your words may have. Use your mouth milagro as a reminder of the power of speech.
Plagued by a compulsion to gossip and speak ill of nearly everyone, a young man turned to prayer and offering mouth milagros to achieve spiritual peace. He offered them daily, using the time to meditate on the effects of ill-will and the benefits of goodwill. He began to look forward to his daily offerings as a time to reflect. After some months, he began to think better of himself as well as of others. He no longer harbored negative thoughts about the world around him—he attributed his newfound mental health to the act of offering.
Focus on the effect your words have on the rest of the world.
So powerful is language that many milagros are offered with a written prayer or message attached. The writing of such a letter may help to unburden the author’s soul, but another benefit of putting these prayers to paper is undoubtedly the sense of communion with an unseen power. To leave a message is to initiate what can be an intensely spiritual conversation, for others as well as the author. Long typewritten letters detailing the saga of a petitioner’s troubles can often be seen hanging from a statue of a saint or affixed to a roadside shrine. Sometimes these letters describe the miracle of deliverance from dire circumstances. The chronicler expects the letter to be read—potentially both by a higher power and by others seeking miraculous testimony.
Expect your own words to be heard by passersby as well as by a higher power. Remind yourself that offhand remarks can cut, that carelessly offered opinions don’t contribute to the overall good, and that deliberate meanness is inexcusable. Use your mouth milagro to focus on the effect your words have on the rest of the world, whether it is the small, personal world you inhabit or the larger world around you. Just as in prayers where you wish well for someone in trouble or pain, your words should aim to bring joy, solace, or knowledge. Remember that the act of conversing is a kind of communion—engage in it with respect.
Palabras bondadosas durarán para siempre.
Kind words will last forever.
SPIRIT
MAKE A VOW with yourself: Be the first to say something kind today; resist the urge to make hurtful remarks; learn to say what needs to be said. Most important, learn to talk to yourself in a way that reflects your belief that your words can make things better.
In many parts of Latin America and the American Southwest, supplicants accompany their offerings of milagros with a vow, a promise between that person and a higher power that is sealed with the presentation of the milagro. Although this is a folk custom and not officially sanctioned by formal religion, it is often performed in conjunction with Catholic ritual, accompanied by conventional Catholic prayers, devotional gifts, and lighting of candles. But the vow can be made informally, particularly in times of crisis when attending to formalities may be the last thing on the promiser’s mind.
We have all felt the despair and hopelessness that seem inevitable components of living in the modern world. Making a pact with a higher power is the manifestation of your faith in the existence of a power beyond yourself, and expresses both the hope of divine intervention and the belief that such intervention is possible. You need only ask for help to receive it.
Regard your mouth milagro as a way to express what you only dare to hope for. It is a way to extend your thoughts and words out into the world, where they will work for the common and spiritual good. Remember that expressions of faith work like self-fulfilling prophecies—the very act of expressing becomes the act of faith. Look to your milagro as a way to reconfirm and restate your connection with spiritual power. Use it to focus on ways to continue the conversation.
MAKING YOUR OWN MILAGROS
HISTORICALLY, MILAGROS HAVE been made from many different materials—the earliest from wood, rock, clay, bone, and local materials such as amber. More modern milagros have been fashioned from gold, silver, copper, bronze, and tin. Since many milagros are intensely personal, a petitioner might bring a piece of jewelry, a coin, or a favorite household object to be melted down and remade into an offering for a special occasion. As individualistic as they are and as creative as some of the artists who made them were, milagros almost never bear a hallmark o
r an artist’s signature, an intriguing characteristic that makes these wonderful offerings seem to belong to anyone and everyone.
Give your own milagros personal and private meaning by making them yourself. First find a pattern or symbol—such as a heart, or a flower, or the sun—that holds particular meaning for you. If you are still searching for symbols, let your imagination wander until one presents itself. Trace the pattern with a pencil on a translucent sheet of paper, and transfer the pattern to a heavy sheet of paper, such as Kraft paper or colored construction paper. To further personalize the milagro, apply symbols or colors with watercolors, felt-tip pen, or glue-on stickers. Cut out the pattern and, if you want to preserve it, laminate it. Punch a hole in the top of the milagro and insert a colorful ribbon. Tie the ribbon in a bow and hang the milagro where it will remind you of the message you want to send yourself.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Egan, Martha. Milagros: Votive Offerings from the Americas. Santa Fe: Museum of University of New Mexico Press, 1991.
Hay, Louise L. Heal Your Body: The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Metaphysical Way to Overcome Them. Carlsbad, California: Hay House, 1994.
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and Walker Art Center. American Indian Art: Form and Tradition. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1973.
Myss, Caroline. Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can. New York: Harmony Books, 1997.
Oktavec, Eileen. Answered Prayers: Miracles and Milagros Along the Border. The University of Arizona Press, 1995.
About the Author and the Illustrator
HELEN THOMPSON is an editor and writer for Metropolitan Home and the author of the In Celebration series, books that offer a wealth of indulgences for every season. She was a writer and editor at Texas Monthly for seventeen years, and the former managing editor of Domain, an arts and lifestyle magazine. She has written for Worth, Men’s Journal, and Southern Style. She lives in Austin, Texas.
A native of the Pacific Northwest region, PADDY BRUCE was born in Victoria, British Columbia in Canada. Her art education and background have taken her to design school in London, Mexico City, and San Miguel de Allende in Mexico where she first discovered milagros and the diverse arts of Mexican culture. A graduate of Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, she is currently a “Bellinghamster” here she resides, works, exhibits, and sails in and around the Puget Sound region and points farther north.
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Copyright
MILAGROS: A Book of Miracles. Copyright © 1998 by Helen Thompson. Artwork copyright © 1998 Paddy Bruce. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thompson, Helen.
Milagros: a book of miracles / Helen Thompson: artwork by Paddy Bruce.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-06-251563-6
1. Votive offerings—Latin America—Miscellanea. 2. Spiritual life. 3. Charms. I. Title.
BL570.T46 1998
246’.55—dc21 98-11736
ePub Edition © MAY 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-201858-8
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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