OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE

Advent III

On Monday Dec 12^th we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe with Mass.  Under the guidance of Ms. Rosalies Toledo, students reenact the events of 1531 when Our Lady appeared, as brown skinned maiden, to a humble Juan Diego.  The image of Guadalupe on Juan’s tilma can is still on display in Mexico city.

Sr. Mary McGlone, SSJ, writes of this feast:

“ "La Morenita," as Guadalupe is called affectionately, is the patron of the Americas and undoubtedly our hemisphere's most beloved manifestation of Mary, the mother of God. The designation, morenita, refers to the fact that the image of Guadalupe depicts Mary as a mestiza, a person of both European and American ancestry, a divinely fashioned mixture of cultures.

Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared just over a decade after the Spanish conquest of Mexico. In a time marked by turmoil, abuse and prophecy, she epitomized the potential of the Gospel to bring ancient traditions together to create something that neither could imagine until they allowed grace to lead them into it. She embodied an American expression of John the Baptist's voice crying in the wilderness.

Our Lady of Guadalupe symbolizes divine love and God's desire that humanity create a community of love and justice. La Morenita incarnates the intercultural unity that is possible when we allow faith to lead us to a communion that respects and simultaneously goes deeper than our diversity.”  https://www.ncronline.org/news/spirituality/scripture-life/third-sunday-advent-fiesta-love-and-liberation

Our Lady of Guadalupe shows that God cares for the poor and oppressed, wants all injustice and oppression to cease, and loves us as a mother loves her children.

This Advent, as we prepare for Christ to be born again in our hearts, our minds, our lives and our world, let’s meditate on the mystery and meaning of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  We are all called by God to incarnate the Gospel values of hospitality, openness to others, and a mighty striving for justice for all. 

NPR notes Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/12/143579900/catholics-honor-virgin-of-guadalupe-for-feast-day

NPR's MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Switching to another part of the world now, this is an important religious day for some Catholics, especially those from Mexico and other parts of Central and Latin America. Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. That's when the faithful celebrate the appearance of an apparition of the Virgin Mary known as the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City back in 1531.

Since then, the image of Guadalupe has become an icon throughout Latin America as a symbol, not just of faith, but also of native pride and resistance against oppression.

Here to tell us more about the Virgin of Guadalupe and her feast day is Friar Gilberto Cavazos-Gonzalez. He is a Franciscan scholar and an associate professor of spirituality at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

...

MARTIN: And the meaning is?

CAVAZOS-GONZALEZ: The meaning is, first, the skin tone. She's neither European nor Native American. She's a combination of the two. You know, she basically was the skin tone of the new children that were being born of Mexican women who had, unfortunately, been either violated or seduced by European men. She has the skin tone of the unwanted children of the violent conquests of Mexico, symbolizing that these children are human. They are worthy of being children of God as well. Mexicans take pride in that, in that we are those children of the violent conquest who have been adopted by God.

Her hands in prayer and her face tilted, she's telling the Indians, I'm not a goddess. I am the servant of a god. And at her neck she wears a cross, so thereby basically proclaiming to God, I serve is(ph) to God, Jesus Christ.

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/12/143579900/catholics-honor-virgin-of-guadalupe-for-feast-day