We celebrate the feast day of Juan Diego today. The context of his feast day is certainly remarkable. Back in 1519, Hernan Cortes and the Spanish conquistadors had invaded the Aztec empire, declaring their victory over the native population in 1521. We can only imagine how devastated the natives were at that time. Just 10 years later, in 1531, a 57 year-old native Mexican man named Juan Diego was making the 15-mile trek to attend mass. A woman's voice called out to him in the midst of beautiful music from atop Tepeyac Hill; thus started the chain of events that led to the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Juan Diego is said to have told the Virgin Mary in his humility: “I am a nobody. I am a small rope, a tiny ladder, the tail end, a leaf.” Yet God chose Juan Diego for a special task. Thanks to him, Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of the seven confirmed apparitions of the Virgin Mary validated by the Catholic Church.
Even today, Our Lady of Guadalupe is the image of hope and liberation in the Mexican and Latin American psyche. Go through a poor Mexican American neighborhood in Los Angeles & you will see the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe everywhere. The image that Juan Diego brought into the world has so much meaning on so many levels even for us today.
Our Lady of Guadalupe is also a symbol of the pro-life movement here in the United States and throughout the world. When there is so much disrespect throughout the world, so much lack of dignity and incivility, so much devaluation of human life. The witness of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Juan Diego is so needed today.
Today, in the midst of our Advent journey, let us look to Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe as examples of faith, speaking out to us from a time and place so different from modern America, but the message they bring to us still resonates so clearly today.
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