The Visitor
Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
My dear encountered couples:
God interrupts our Advent liturgy with a special bulletin: “I have chosen my Son’s Mother to play a very important and continuing role in my plan of salvation. Listen to her!”
The Blessed Virgin Mary was not only the woman chosen and prepared by God to be the Mother of his Son. She was not merely a door through which came the Savior of the world. Down through the centuries since Mary was taken up to heaven, she has been sent back to earth to encourage us to pray and do penance, to warn us of impending disasters if we do not change our ways. Today we celebrate the feast of one of her return visits.
On December 9, 1531, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to an Indian convert, Juan Diego, near Mexico City and left with him a picture of herself impressed upon his cloak. She told Juan she wanted a church built there. In the first of her five apparitions Mary told Juan, “You must know, and be very certain in your heart, my son, that I am truly the eternal Virgin, holy Mother of the True God, through whose favor we live, the Creator, Lord of heaven and the Lord of the earth.”
Today the church that was built on this site is visited yearly by millions of people; it is reported that numerous miracles have taken place there. This is a holy day of obligation in Mexico, we celebrate it as a memorial feast in the United States. Under her title of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mary has been declared Patroness not only of Latin America but of all the Americas. As she visited her cousin Elizabeth, Mary visits us. Let us always give her our welcome. “Blessed are you, Mary, among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
