By Sister Rosario Resendez, IWBS
With Mary’s apparition and her image left on the tilma a whole nation came to the faith. A whole nation began to recognize Our Lord in the sacraments and most especially in the Eucharist. I now understand why my home parish was named Our Lady of Guadalupe as it did exactly what she did, bring people in with open arms to present to them the King of Kings in the Eucharist. Mary, the mother of God; Mary, the mother of the Eucharist only wants to guide us to Jesus.
Although we do not need to have a personal relationship with Mary to be a good Catholic and to have a good relationship with God, I think it’s important to remember that when Jesus wanted to introduce Himself to the “new world” He sent His mother. He, as our God, has access to everything seen and unseen, yet He sent His mom. The conquistadors were there forcing the faith on the native people using violence and swords, but Jesus sent love, in the form of His mother, to bring the people to Him.
During this Eucharistic Revival, I hope we can approach the Eucharist keeping in mind the history of how the faith came to be in this country. I hope we can remember that Mary, our mother, came herself to bring us to her Son. I hope that if we are afraid or don’t know how to approach Jesus, we may call out to her and know that she will gladly take us by the hand and gently with much love lead us to Him.
There are a couple of feast days for our Blessed Mother in December. The feast of the Immaculate Conception which is the day that she was conceived in the womb of St. Ann, and though it is not a Holy Day of obligation as the previous feast that I wrote about, we have the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Neither one of these dates I believe can compete, nor do I think the Church wants them to compete, and much less do I think our Blessed Mother would want to compete with the great feast that is coming on the 25th. On Christmas we celebrate when God pierced through time and became human so that we may better know Him.
Still I think there is something special about these two Marian feast days coming before Christmas. After all we needed Mary’s fiat so that we could have our Baby Jesus. So, the Immaculate Conception, she needed to be conceived in order to be born and later become the mother of God.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, the queen of the Americas, appeared to an indigenous man with the baptized name of Juan Diego in Mexico to tell him to go to the bishop of the area and ask him to
build a temple in that very spot.
Growing up in Bay City, my hometown parish was named Our Lady of Guadalupe. Even as a little girl I knew the church was named Our Lady of Guadalupe after our Blessed Mother under that title but inside the church the focus was Jesus. As a little girl I didn’t understand why the church wasn’t named after Jesus being that the focus was Him. Those were my thoughts as a child.
As I grew up, I began to study my faith, I began to also study the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego. Anyone who knows me knows that when something interests me, I do not just study it, I obsess over it.
She came to the now Saint Juan Diego, looking like his people, dressed in garments he would recognize, speaking his language so that a temple may be built in that place. What would that temple be used for if not for the holy sacrifice of the Mass where the Eucharist would be present for the people? Mary appeared as a pregnant woman to Juan Diego a little more than 10 days before Christmas was to be celebrated to show that something greater than her is coming.