Our Lady of Guadalupe

Today the Church (and all of the Spanish-speaking Americas) celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Today's feast marks the occasion when Mary appeared to an Indian named Juan Diego in 1531 on a mountain in modern-day Mexico City.  Mary told Juan Diego to go and ask the local bishop to build a church on that mountain.  The bishop didn't believe Juan Diego and after being sent away by the bishop on two occasions, he returned a third time with roses (it being winter, roses wouldn't have bloomed) and the image of Mary on Juan Diego's tilma.  The original tilma with the image hang today in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City and is visited annually by 20 million people making it the second most visited church in the world (Saint Peter's is the most visited).

This occasion gave rise to massive conversions in the Americas and hope that God looks out for the lowly, the poor, and the oppressed.  Given the massive increase of the Latino population in the Americas and in the Church, today's feast has taken on monumental cultural and religious significance.

To celebrate this feast, the cafe is serving Mexican food, our opening prayer was read in Spanish, and we are having prayer services during all theology classes.  We purchased a framed print of Our Lady of Guadalupe and I placed it in the chapel along with some roses.  I am using it during our prayer service and I will later hang it somewhere in the school.

I offered the following reflection during our prayer services today:


As we discussed last week, the Jewish people had been oppressed for thousands and thousands of years and had hoped that God would send someone, anyone to save them.  Many of them had expected that a rich and powerful King or a warrior would rise up and slay their oppressors.  But who did God send to them?  He sent a baby, who was born in a stable more suited to farm animals, and whose mother was poor and oppressed.  This was no accident.  

And it was no accident that 1,500 years later that same poor and oppressed woman would appear to a poor and oppressed Native American and make him a symbol of hope for generations of people.  The image of Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe - a Mary that is dark skinned - has given hope to Mexicans, Latinos, African-Americans, and countless others who have suffered for centuries.  

On that day in 1531, Mary didn’t appear before the bishop or a king or a rich man.  Rather, she appeared to a poor man whose people were being oppressed by many kings and rich men.  Because of this, the prayer we just prayed rings so true: the poor and oppressed know that God looks over the “lowly”; God scatters the “proud”; God “fills the hungry”; God sends the “rich away empty.”  

Our Lady of Guadalupe is loved and revered by so many because she is a reminder that God has never forgotten the poor, He has never forgotten the outcast, and He has never showed preference to the rich and powerful.  She is also a reminder that we must do the same.  We, like King Wenceslas, must not forget the poor, the kid who sits alone in the cafe, or the student who people make fun of or ignore.  For we who bless the poor, the kid who sits alone in the cafe, or the student who people make fun of and ignore, shall ourselves find blessing from God.

This image of Our Lady of Guadalupe will soon be hung somewhere in our school.  May it be a constant reminder to you and to me that we are called to be different from the ways of the world, that we should be more concerned with the poor, the lowly, and the outcast.  May we, like Mary, her son Jesus, and the good King Wenceslas, look out, see the outcast, and bless them with our actions.  Amen.