I came across this text from Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska in Zenit, which they had taken from the Southern Nebraska Register, and share just part of it as we have just celebrated the feast of Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Fifteen
years ago, in 1999, Pope St. John Paul II declared that the Feast of
Our Lady of Guadalupe would be celebrated in every Church in the
Americas, because, he said, she is the Patroness, the Evangelizer,
and the Mother of the Americas.
John
Paul said that through her intercession, the new evangelization in
America would “yield a splendid flowering of Christian life.”
She is, therefore, the Star of the New Evangelization.
The
Blessed Virgin Mary is an evangelist in all times, in all cultures.
She was essential to the evangelization of the Americas from the time
of the first Christian missionaries who came to these shores. John
Paul II said that “the Most Blessed Virgin is linked in a special
way to the birth of the Church in the history ... of the peoples of
America; through Mary they came to encounter the Lord.”
Today,
we are called to the work of a new evangelization—we are called to
invite the world into deeper communion with Christ and His Church.
We are called to propose Christ, as if for the very first time, to a
culture that has largely lost sight of the Christian sensibilities in
which it is rooted. We are called to propose to people an encounter
with Christ.
If
we wish to be successful evangelists—successful missionaries to a
people who need Christ—we need the Blessed Virgin Mary. And in our
culture, in our nation, in our communities, and in our families, we
need the Virgin of Guadalupe.
As
we undertake the work of the new evangelization, we are called to
imitate the love of Our Lady of Guadalupe. There are, in particular,
three elements of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe at the
heart of her prophetic witness to the modern world: respect for the
poor, commitment to the dignity of life, and evangelization through
the power of beauty.
When
the Blessed Mother appeared on Tepeyac, she appeared to St. Juan
Diego, the Nahuatl Indian who was among the first to be baptized by
Franciscan missionaries in Mexico in the early 16th century. She did
not appear to the missionaries themselves, or to Bishop Zummarraga,
or to the Indian and Spanish nobility in Mexico. Instead, the
Blessed Virgin Mary entrusted the responsibility of proclaiming her
presence to a simple man with no contacts, connections, or influence.
She did so because she saw his dignity, his holiness, and his
ability.
When
she appeared to St. Juan Diego, Our Lady of Guadalupe wore a knotted
black sash around her waist—a symbol of pregnancy in Nahuatl
culture. And her waist bulged—a sign of the unborn Jesus Christ
growing within her. Our Lady of Guadalupe is unique among the
apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary because she appears bearing
Jesus Christ in her womb.
Our
Lady of Guadalupe evangelized the Americas while witnessing to the
humanity of an unborn child. If we wish to imitate her, we must be
steadfast in doing the same.
If
you have ever been to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico
City, you know that the image of Our Lady is shockingly beautiful. On
the real tilma on which Our Lady imprinted herself, her eyes are
alive, her clothing is splendid, each color is striking and vivid.
And every single thing on the tilma of Juan Diego is a rich
theological symbol. There is no pattern, no line, no color, left to
chance. The image is saturated with meaning—so rich, so dense, so
bursting with meaning that even today, it is still being ever more
clearly understood.
Our
Lady of Guadalupe is a witness to the power of beauty. We celebrate
liturgy beautifully, and build beautiful Churches, and make beautiful
music, and art, and poetry, in order to capture the hearts and
imaginations of the world, as Our Lady captured the heart and
imagination of St. Juan Diego. Pope Francis says, “the Church
evangelizes, and is evangelized, through beauty.” Our Lady reminds
us of that.
For
almost 500 years, Our Lady of Guadalupe has captured hearts for Jesus
Christ. She is the Star of the New Evangelization. In our commitment
to the poor, to the defense of life, and to evangelization through
beauty, may we imitate her, and may she intercede for us before
Christ, her son.
Our
Lady of Guadalupe, Star of the New Evangelization, pray for us.
