Luz Eugenia Alvarez, RSM, was born and raised in Durango City, Mexico. She entered religious life in 1984 with the Sisters of the Cross of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, an international cloistered Congregation. While with the sisters she earned a Bachelor’s degree in theology and spirituality and a Graduate Certificate in Religious Formation from Mexico City LaSalle University. She also received biblical formation from the Theological International Institute (IITD) in Madrid, Spain. Upon moving to the United States, she earned a Master of Divinity and Graduate Certificate in Spiritual Formation and a Graduate Certificate in Hispanic Theology at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Illinois. Later, she felt called to an apostolic religious community and joined the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. Currently, she works at Cristo Rey High School in Sacramento, California, a Mercy-sponsored school, as Parent Outreach Coordinator and as Adjunct Faculty at Dominican University in the Chicago, Illinois, area.
In most cases the reality of women in Latin American countries as well as in the US continues to be oppression and exploitation by political, cultural and religious systems that are predominantly male. For this reason, as Our Lady of Guadalupe is a feminine image, we have the question of whether this devotion is today giving women the same identity and empowerment that, in its