The following was the talk given about Our Lady of Guadalupe after the Peace Mass at Our Lady of Mercy on Jan. 25, 2011
Click to hear Audio of the Talk
A couple of years ago, pilgrims and I were in a bus traveling to a place where something extraordinary and miraculous happened many years ago. On the way there we looked out of our windows and we saw grim concrete blockade walls topped with barbed wire all along the highway. It was as if we were entering a military compound. As we neared our destination, there was a check point where a soldier with an imposing rifle got near the bus to survey who was in it. We were allowed to proceed. On the streets, we saw poverty; cars without tires, doors, and a hood were left abandoned on the streets. Broken concrete dotted the road. Some of the buildings were in serious disrepair. As we approached the building where the miracle happened, we saw the opening for the entrance. The height of the opening was not even tall enough for this short Korean to walk through. All of us had to stoop and bend in order to enter.
Several weeks ago, pilgrims and I were in a bus traveling to another place where something extraordinary and miraculous happened many years ago. We saw people jam packed into a dilapidated bus that was about to fall apart. We saw beggars on the grassy median of a busy road. When we were stopped at a signal light, we saw men and women selling gum, cigarettes, and snacks to the occupants in the cars that were also waiting for the light to change. We saw young men with a liter bottle of something underneath their arms, cleaning windshields for some change. When we arrived at the building where the miracle was displayed, we were greeted by several armed policemen wearing bulletproof vests and carrying pump shotguns.
Although I’m describing something external and physical, sometimes that’s what our inner world feels like when we come to the church on Sundays. We feel the turmoil inside, as if we are standing on dry, dusty ground looking for water, looking for peace. Things inside feel disjointed, abandoned, and impoverished. Externally, our family and friends cannot tell any difference. Things seem normal and okay. But things are not okay inside. Yet the moment you set foot inside church, you suddenly feel different. There may be feelings of peace, feelings that assures us that things will be okay. This is the encounter between the human condition and the miraculous intervention.
The first pilgrimage I described, was a pilgrimage to the place where a miraculous sign happened 2000 years ago. The second pilgrimage I described, was a pilgrimage to a the place where a miraculous sign happened 500 years ago. If you noticed, there were not external signs that there was something miraculous in those two places; rather, there were plenty of signs, like poverty and lack of peace, that there was something wrong. Yet God for some mysterious reason chose to put miraculous signs in the midst of chaos and abandonment. And the signs occurred to those who were utterly ordinary, so ordinary that many doubted that these signs could be given to such ordinary souls.
So in a small town of Bethlehem, a child was born for us to a teenager. Poor shepherds witnessed such wonder. Immediately this fragile life was already in jeopardy by the ruling king and had to be hidden away. Over 1500 years later, on a small hill of Tepeyac a 57-year old Indian received a heavenly image on a fragile, cactus fiber Tilma that under normal circumstance would have only survived 35 years. Over the years, several attempts to destroy this image were made, including a powerful time-bomb that shattered everything in sight except the intended target.
(Church of Bethlehem- Exterior)
(Church of Bethlehem- Interior)
(Church of Bethlehem- Jesus' Birth Cave)
(Church of Bethlehem- Jesus' Birth Place)
(Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe- Interior)
Few weeks ago as pilgrims and I stood on the conveyor belts that have moved millions of people below the 500-year old image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we stood with rapt awe, just as the 8 million Mexican natives who upon seeing the image felt a motherly gaze that moved their hearts to belong to her in some way. For the natives of 1531, that desire to be loved and belong to this beautiful and loving lady moved them to conversion to Catholicism. This mother who gazed at them from the Tilma spoke internally to them, “Do whatever my Son asks you.”
Our beloved Pope John Paul II always said, “Be not afraid,”--not to let fear hinder in knowing, loving, and serving Our Heavenly Father. It is said that Pope Benedict XVI added to John Paul II’s exhortation by saying, “Be not afraid of Christ.” Prior to Our Lady of Guadalupe’s apparition, the native Mexicans were afraid of Spanish Conquistadors who brought plagues and enslavement; for the natives, the Spanish God was no better than the serpent gods that seemed to thirst for human blood. It took a humble, woman clothed with the sun, and moon under her feet, to crush the fear instilled both by the serpent gods and the Spanish Conquistadors. Her “perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18)
I stood at one end of the conveyor belts and watched people gazing up to see the heavenly image on the Tilma. Some had their hands over their eyes because they were crying. In some mysterious, non-verbal way, they heard the gentle mother’s call--”My dear little son, my dear little daughter, I am the eternal Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God, Author of Life, Creator of all and Lord of the Heavens and of the Earth...as your most merciful Mother and that of all your people, I may show my loving clemency and the compassion that I bear to those who love and seek me...” The tears shed by these people were signs of the joy of finding anew their Heavenly Mother who has been with them from the very beginning of their conception. It was as if those who gazed at her image on the Tilma, in some mysterious way, felt Blessed Mother wrapping her arms around them and they were embraced by the warmth of the words Juan Diego heard her say, “My little son. Do not be distressed and afraid. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the fountain of your joy? Are you not in the fold of my mantle, in the cradle of my arms?”
(Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe- Exterior)
(Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe- Interior)
(The Original Image from 1531 of Our Lady of Guadalupe)
(Conveyor belts that move people below Our Lady's image)
After viewing the heavenly image, pilgrims made their way to the pews for the mass that was about to begin. In the front of the sanctuary was the Nativity Set. Our group had arrived in Mexico City during the week that the Feast of Epiphany (Jan 6) was celebrated. In Mexico, gifts are given on Epiphany, when the wise men arrive, and not on Christmas. There is much anticipation and celebration leading up to the feast day so many were in the church that day. There were people gathered around the Nativity to view the scene and at the center of the scene was the Christ child. And there it was evident why Blessed Mother came to her children of Mexico. Her entire purpose was to bring her Beloved Son to the people to adore and to worship; she was making present again the miracle that happened in Bethlehem 1,500 years earlier. Yet the natives could not come and worship her Son unless a church was built; so Blessed Mother asked for a small church to be built where she appeared on the Tepeyac hill. She said to Juan Diego, “I want very much that they build my sacred little house here, in which I will show Him, I will exalt Him upon making Him manifest, I will give Him to all people in all my personal love, Him that is my compassionate gaze, Him that is my help, Him that is my salvation.” The small humble church built 500 years ago is now a basilica capable of having 10,000 persons worshipping inside. In that basilica, Blessed Mother’s statue in the Nativity set gazed at the Christ Child as if to say, “Behold my Child, behold my Child.” That afternoon, I went down to a gift shop and purchased a life-sized statue of Christ Child. Immediately I returned to the conveyor belt below the Tilma, and I looked up and asked, “Blessed Mother, please bless your Son’s statue.” And I felt her speak to me as she said, “Behold my Child. Behold my Child.”
A day after arriving back in Baton Rouge from Mexico City, I found myself in my easy chair, holding the statue of Christ Child in my arms as I prayed the morning prayer. I heard Blessed Mother’s voice, “Behold my Child. Behold my Child...Cling to my Son. Be faithful to your prayers. Even in your most difficult moments be faithful to your prayers. Your prayers and Eucharist will sustain you.” That morning, my room was around 58 degrees. I forgot to turn on the heater. As I felt the coldness of the plaster statue of Infant Jesus, it occurred to me to ask Blessed Mother, “Blessed Mother, what will keep your Child Jesus warm?” I felt her saying to me, “My Son needs your prayers and sacrifice to keep him warm. My Son hungers for your love.” So just as Blessed Mother wrapped Infant Jesus in swaddling clothes to keep him warm and whispered words of comfort for her crying child, I found myself clutching this Child Jesus in my bosom, trying to keep Him warm by my love for Him.
That morning I celebrated Mass in my room, and at the moment when I lifted the Host and said, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,” I imagined holding up the Christ Child who had rested in my arms, who hungered for me, who needed me, who loved me. This was the greatest grace that I received on my pilgrimage to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Do you ever wonder why Jesus comes to us so intimately in the Eucharist? It is so that each one of us will bring the Christ Child to those around us. How many around us crave the love that only the Christ Child can give.
Juan Diego was chosen to bring Blessed Mother’s message. He was afraid and doubted, yet with Blessed Mother’s tender entreaty, he answered her call. We have been chosen to bring the Christ Child to others. We may be afraid. We may have doubts. Like Juan Diego, we must turn to Blessed Mother in prayer knowing that she will lead and guide. We must turn to her in our struggles, hurts, illnesses, turmoil, knowing that she is with us. She will bring us to her Son.
.JPG)
