Daily Gospel Reflection
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December 12, 2019
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
Reflection
“…Mary set out and went with haste…” She desired to share with her cousin, Elizabeth, the joy of the Good News. Many years ago Mary “made haste” towards me through my devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Her journey towards me began in my parents and their deep devotion to her. Over the years, I became closer and closer to Our Lady of Guadalupe and Mary filled my heart with a great love for her son, Jesus.
My earliest and most enduring memories of my parents’ devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe came in the form of the songs that we would sing, especially at Mass on her feast day. My love for Our Mother grew with every year and finally led me to make a pilgrimage in the spring of 2007 when I journeyed with my parents to Tepeyac in Mexico City, the site of her apparition and shrine.
As we climbed towards the shrine, my mother was overcome with emotion and grabbed a hold of my father tighter and tighter as we approached the hilltop of Tepeyac. When we arrived, my parents stood together and cried as they looked out over Mexico. I prayed with great joy and I remember telling Our Mother that I would “make haste” to return and bring her children to visit so that she could hold them in the fold of her mantle, where she would draw them closer to her son, Jesus Christ.
I have returned many, many times with friends and family. As the Assistant Director of Multicultural Ministry in Campus Ministry, I now have the honor of fulfilling my promise to Our Lady by bringing Notre Dame students on a pilgrimage to her shrine each fall. I never thought my prayer more than ten years ago would bless me with the opportunity to share Our Lady of Guadalupe with so many people. The spiritual power of that place never fails to transform their hearts. Let us all set out and “make haste” to share in the Good News of our Lord and Savior in and through his mother, Mary. ¡Vive la Virgen de Guadalupe!
Prayer
O Lord our God, like a mother who cares for her dear children, you offer us the model of Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe. For the poor and the oppressed, she is mother of hope, and she calls all of us to justice and peace. To all her children, her sisters and brothers in this world, she proclaims the rewards of holiness. May we in turn prove worthy of Mary, empress of the Americas, as we await the coming of the kingdom of her Son, Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
Saint of the Day
In December of 1531, a poor native Aztec Indian named Juan Diego was walking through the hills outside of Mexico City on his way to Mass. He heard sweet music and a woman’s voice calling his name from a hill called Tepeyac.
Juan Diego climbed the hill and found a woman who looked like she was also Aztec and dressed in traditional Aztec clothing. She identified herself as the Virgin Mary and instructed Juan Diego to tell his bishop to build a shrine on Tepeyac hill to encourage faithfulness in the people of Mexico City.
When he heard Juan Diego's request, the bishop was skeptical and asked for a sign. When Juan Diego went back and gave this message to Mary, she told him to go to the top of Tepeyac hill and pick the roses he would find there. Juan Diego gathered the roses in his tilma, a cloak-like a poncho, and Mary arranged the flowers and told him to take them to the bishop.
When Juan showed the bishop the roses, they saw that an image of Mary was left upon Juan’s cloak. The bishop was immediately convinced and built a shrine on Tepeyac. Soon, some 8 million people had come to the faith because of Mary’s apparition.
Juan Diego’s tilma was framed and kept in the shrine. It was made of a rough material from cactus and should have decayed within a few decades, but 500 years later is still an object of wonder for millions of pilgrims today. (Recent analyses have revealed that recorded in the image of Mary's iris there are small images of Juan Diego himself, which further indicates its supernatural origin.)
Our Lady of Guadalupe was declared patroness of the Americas. And, as, in the image of Guadalupe, she is portrayed as an expectant mother (her pregnancy is indicated by the high-waisted black sash) she is depicted as pregnant with Jesus, she is also the patron of the Right to Life movement. (For a short reflection on the placement of this feast during the Advent season, read this essay from theology professor and Guadalupe scholar Maxwell Johnson here.)
This feast day is celebrated on Notre Dame's campus with a vibrant Mass in the Basilica led by the Spanish-language student choir. A number of images of Our Lady of Guadalupe are presented on campus—the most recent shown below was painted along St. Joseph Lake by artist Bea Bradley.
Our featured image for the day can be found in a side chapel in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart and is brought out for veneration annually for the Guadalupe Mass. It was painted by Maria Tomasula, professor of painting in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design. In the video below, Director of the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, Dr. Joseph Becherer, explains two different paintings of Our Lady of Guadalupe: a piece from 18th century in the Raclin Murphy collection and Tomasula piece in the basilica.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas and of the Right to Life movement—pray for us!
View and personalize a card with a prayer to of Our Lady of Guadalupe here on FaithND.
Image Credit: Maria Tomasula, Virgin of Guadalupe, 2008, Oil on board. Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame. Pat and Robert Kill Family Endowment for Excellence for Latin American Art, 2009.001. ©Maria Tomasula, 2020