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 invaded the Aztec empire, declaring their victory over the native population in present-day Mexico in 1521. We can only imagine how devastated the natives were at that time, the upheaval that brought to their culture and civilization. Just 10 years later, in 1531, a 57 year-old native Aztec man named Juan Diego was making the 15-mile walk to attend mass. A woman's voice called out to him in the midst of beautiful music from atop Tepeyac Hill, starting 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 humble Juan Diego for a special mission. Thanks to him, Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of the confirmed apparitions of the Virgin Mary validated by the Catholic Church.
Today in our modern world, Our Lady of Guadalupe is an image of hope, liberation and the Gospel of Life. Go through a poor Mexican American neighborhood in Los Angeles or any city with a large Mexican American population, and 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. As a symbol of the pro-life movement, one the midst of division, disrespect, incivility, and a lack of expressing dignity for 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. They speak out to us from a time and place so different from modern America. Like the message we hear in our readings today, of how God speaks in a special way to the children and the humble, how we are to have an open faith like a child, let us open our hearts to God’s Advent message today.
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