What a beautiful Gospel selection
for this very special feast day. Here we
have the pregnant Virgin Mother Mary, carrying within her Our Blessed Lord
Jesus, visiting her kinswoman, Elizabeth, herself pregnant with the herald of
Christ, John the Baptist. In a time and culture
where expecting a child, where child-bearing, was looked on not as a burden or
a punishment, but as a singular blessing from God.
Fast
forward 1500 years to the new world, where the Spanish conquest of the Aztec
empire in what is now Mexico was in its twentieth or so year. Where Spanish missionaries had set out to
convert the natives, but had met with very little success. Where the native Aztec culture, and its
worship of many gods called for routine human sacrifice, of adults but mostly
of children and babies. Thousands upon
thousands sacrificed, offered up to these Aztec gods year after year.
But
then this same Virgin Mother Mary we hear proclaimed in today’s Gospel appeared
to the humble peasant Juan Diego, and by her intercession Juan’s uncle was
cured of a life-threatening disease, and by the miracle of Juan Diego’s shawl,
his tilma, on which the Virgin’s image was miraculously found, millions upon
millions of the natives were baptized as Christians in the next few years. The human sacrifices largely stopped. By the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe
there came to be a new reverence for, respect for, human life. And Mexico became one of the most Catholic
nations on earth.
So
it is no surprise that Blessed Pope John Paul II, during his 1999 visit to
Mexico, entrusted the cause of human life to her loving protection, and placed
under her motherly care the innocent lives of children, especially those who
are in danger of not being born, naming Our Lady of Guadalupe as the patroness
of the unborn as well as all of the Americas.
My
sisters and brothers, the culture throughout our hemisphere is again hostile to
human life in all stages and all forms, from the unborn, to the poor, the
immigrant, the infirm, the elderly. Child
bearing is seen as a burden or even as a disease to be treated by our
healthcare system. And just like the
Spanish missionaries were unsuccessful in their efforts until Mary appeared to
Juan Diego, we will not see the protection of the unborn without a work of
God. We can and should implore the
Virgin of Guadalupe to intercede for us, for the conversion of our culture, and
to strengthen us to advocate for protection and care of all human life.
Our
Holy Father, Pope Francis spoke to each of us in the Americas in his noontime
address just yesterday, when he said the following:
“Mary’s embrace showed what
America – North and South – is called to be: a land where different peoples
come together; a land prepared to accept human life at every stage, from the
mother’s womb to old age; a land which welcomes immigrants, and the poor and
the marginalized, in every age. A land of generosity. That is the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe,
and it is also my message, the message of the Church. I ask all the people of
the Americas to open wide their arms, like the Virgin, with love and tenderness.
I pray for all of you, dear brothers and sisters, and I ask you to pray for me!
May the joy of the Gospel always abide in your hearts. May the Lord bless you, and may Our Lady be
ever at your side.” Amen.
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