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not offensive. Portraying her in quasi-modern dress and sneakers is not offensive to me, though it may be to some.
Portraying her running in order to show her thigh is offensive. The human body is not offensive but Mary has always been a symbol of feminine modesty to Christians, an ideal for Christian women to emulate.
Portraying Mary trampling on a cherub is also offensive. Since the cherub has red, white, and blue wings, it would appear to be an anti-American statement, but the real problem I have with it is that it shows Our Lady trampling on a cherub. That makes no sense theologically. As the second Eve, Our Lady tramples on the serpent/Satan.
Thus it's also troubling that Mary is waving a serpent about as if she might use it as a weapon. I've studied OLG for years as research for my art work and here are a few things I've learned:
"Some believe that Our Lady used the Aztec Nahuatl word of coatlaxopeuh which is pronounced "quatlasupe" and sounds remarkably like the Spanish word Guadalupe. Coa meaning serpent, tla being the noun ending which can be interpreted as "the", while xopeuh means to crush or stamp out. So Our Lady must have called herself the one "who crushes the serpent."
The Aztecs practiced human sacrifice on a grand scale. "In 1487, just in a single 4 days long ceremony for the dedication of a new temple in Tenochtitlan, some 80,000 captives were killed in human sacrifice. The same practices, which in most cases included the cannibalism of the victims limbs, were common also in earlier Mesoamerican cultures, with widespread Olmec, Toltec and Maya human sacrificing rituals."
"An almost universal symbol of that religion was the serpent. The temples were richly decorated with snakes. Human sacrifices were heralded by the prolonged beating of huge drums made of the skins of huge snakes, which could be heard two miles away. Nowhere else in human history had Satan, the ancient serpent, so formalized his worship with so many of his own actual symbols."
"The Image of Our Lady is actually an Aztec Pictograph which was read and understood quickly by the Aztec Indians.
1. THE LADY STOOD IN FRONT OF THE SUN
She was greater than the dreaded Huitzilopochtli, their
sun-god of war.
2. HER FOOT RESTED ON THE CRESCENT
MOON
She had clearly crushed Quetzalcoatl,
the feathered serpent moon-god.
3. THE STARS STREWN ACROSS THE MANTLE
She was greater than the stars of heaven which they worshipped. She was a virgin and the Queen of the heavens for Virgo rests over her womb and the northern crown upon her head. She appeared on December 12, 1531 and the stars that she wore are the constellations of
the stars that appeared in the sky that day!
4. THE BLUE?GREEN HUE OF HER MANTLE
She was a Queen because she wears the color of royalty.
5. THE BLACK CROSS ON THE BROOCH AT HER NECK
Her God was that of the Spanish Missionaries, Jesus Christ her son who died
on the cross for all mankind.
6. THE BLACK BELT
She was with child because she wore the Aztec Maternity Belt.
7. THE FOUR PETAL FLOWER OVER THE WOMB
She was the Mother of God because the flower was a special symbol of
life, movement and deity-the center of the universe.
8. HER HANDS ARE JOINED IN PRAYER
She was not God but clearly there was one greater than Her and she
pointed her finger to the cross on her brooch.
9. THE DESIGN ON HER ROSE COLORED GARMENT
She is the Queen of the Earth because she is wearing a contour map of
Mexico telling the Indians exactly where the apparition took place."
Within a few years of the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe, when she crushed the serpent under her feet, millions of the native people converted to Christianity.
The information provided is from the sites I mentioned in my earlier post re: OLG.
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