The Woman Who Crushes the Serpent’s Head

In 580 Pope Gregory the Great gave the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe as a gift to Saint Leander, Bishop of Seville. Later, in the 8th century, due to Muslim invasions, this great religious treasure was buried for safe keeping in the earth, high in the Estremadura Mountains. This much-venerated statue of the Madonna and Child is said to have been carved by Saint Luke himself. After the overthrow of Moorish occupation, the image was uncovered in the year 1326, subsequent to an apparition of Our Lady to a humble shepherd by the name of Gil. Our Lady's very special statue was enshrined in a nearby Franciscan friary next to Wolf River. The Muslims, during their Spanish occupation, had given the river its name: the Arabic term for Wolf River is guadalupe (guada = river; lupe = wolf). Hence, the famous Catholic image in Spain has been known since the 14th century, by the Arabic name of “Our Lady of Guadalupe”. During her apparition in Mexico on December 9, 1531, it is believed that Our Lady used the Aztec word coatlaxopeuh, which is pronounced remarkably like the Spanish word guadalupe; meaning “serpent” and “to crush”. So it can be interpreted that Our Lady called herself the one “who crushes the serpent”. Certainly, in this case she did crush the serpent, and only a few years later millions of the natives were converted to Christianity and human sacrifices ended. Let us not forget to note Genesis 3:15, in which it is indicated that the woman would crush the serpent's head.