Daily Gospel Reflection
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December 9, 2021
Jesus said to the crowds:
“Amen, I say to you,
among those born of women
there has been none greater than John the Baptist;
yet the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
From the days of John the Baptist until now,
the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence,
and the violent are taking it by force.
All the prophets and the law prophesied up to the time of John.
And if you are willing to accept it,
he is Elijah, the one who is to come.
Whoever has ears ought to hear.”
Advent 2010 was a difficult season in my life. My husband and I had carried the cross of infertility for yet another year, with zero conceptions and fifteen failed adoptions. We were so tired of waiting for what was a good and beautiful desire and wondered where God was in it all.
In that season of grief, I could intimately relate to the experience of Israel longing for a savior. I found solace that in Advent, I was in solidarity with Catholics worldwide who waited in darkness for the fulfillment of a promise.
In today’s gospel, we hear about one such promise fulfilled. St. John the Baptist, the long-awaited prophet of the Messiah, was born to a faithful, barren couple advanced in years.
Today we also remember the feasts of St. Hannah and St. Juan Diego. Known for her outpouring of tears to the Lord for the gift of a child—the reward for Hannah’s hope was Samuel. A humble and childless man willing to carry the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the outpouring of roses from St. Juan Diego’s tilma was the long-awaited answer to the prayers of a Bishop committed to the defense of the marginalized and vulnerable.
In each story, we see that God was moving in the waiting, working all things together for good. The answers did not come quickly or predictably, but the promises of the Father were fulfilled.
My husband and I clung to hope with the desire that our story would have a similar ending. Little did I know that in the midst of my darkest moment, our son had already been born. Not by my womb, but by the gift of his birth mother. We met him for the first time shortly after Christmas, and his adoption was finalized the following year.
This Advent, in our waiting and longing, may we stay firm in hope and prepare to be surprised by a Father who keeps his promises.
Prayer
When you walked the earth, Lord, there was the same kind of violence that we see in our day. Violent men threw John into prison and raged against the kingdom you were establishing. Help us counteract the violence of our time by being men and women who try by whatever means to advance your kingdom of peace. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Canonized in 2002 by Pope John Paul II, Juan Diego, the Aztec American Indian who received the visions of Our Lady of Guadalupe, was the first indigenous American to be canonized a saint.
Juan Diego was born in 1474 in an area that is now part of Mexico City, Mexico. His indigenous name was Cuauhtlatoatzin, which means “talking eagle.” Juan was most likely from a peasant family and worked as a weaver, farmer, and laborer. When Franciscan missionaries arrived in the area in 1524, Juan and his wife, Maria, were among the first to be baptized, even though Juan was already 50 years old by that time.
On December 9, 1531, Juan woke up before dawn to begin the 15-mile walk to attend daily Mass at the Franciscan mission, as he usually did. As he passed Tepeyac Hill, Juan heard music and a voice calling him in his native language. Curious and excited, Juan climbed the hill and saw there a radiant lady, Mary, whose clothes were shining and glimmering. She asked Juan to go to the bishop and tell him that she wished for a shrine to be built on that site.
Juan did as he was told, but the bishop was skeptical and asked for time to think about it. On his way home, Juan saw the Lady once again and suggested that she might do better to pick someone else because he was “a man of no importance.” The Lady insisted that she wanted Juan's particular help, and the next day Juan returned to the bishop to repeat her request.
The bishop asked for a sign to prove that the vision was authentic, and Juan returned to the hill and told the Lady, who responded that she would provide one the next day.
On December 11, Juan’s uncle fell sick, and Juan was busy at home caring for him. Juan's wife, Maria, had died two years earlier, and his uncle was his dearest and closest relative. The next day, his uncle’s condition worsened and the distraught Juan Diego left to find a priest to hear his uncle’s confession to prepare him for death. Juan was embarrassed that he had not fulfilled the Lady’s wishes, so he took a different route around Tepeyac to avoid seeing her, but Mary appeared to him on his detour and gently reprimanded him for not turning to her—“Am I not here? I, who am your mother?” she said.
The Lady assured Juan that his uncle was healthy, that she was watching over him. She instructed Juan to climb Tepeyac once again and collect the roses he saw in bloom at the top of the hill. Juan obeyed and picked from the unusual, out-of-season abundance of beautiful roses he found. Juan took the roses to the Lady in his tilma, that is, his cloak, and she rearranged them before sending him to the bishop.
When Juan arrived at the bishop's palace, he opened up his tilma, to show him the amazing sign of the roses in winter. But, when Juan opened up his tilma and the flowers tumbled out, an image of the Lady appeared, painted in vibrant colors on his tilma. The bishop knelt before the image, in awe, recognizing the Lady as an image of Mary, the Mother of God. Immediately, the bishop began to enact Mary's request to build a shrine on Tepeyac.
Juan was granted permission to live the rest of his life as a hermit in a small hut attached to the church built on Tepeyac, and he spent his days in prayer and service to the pilgrims who came to the shrine. Juan died in 1548 and was canonized in 2002 by Pope John Paul II.
One miracle that was listed in Juan Diego's cause for canonization occurred during the beatification celebration for Juan Diego in 1990. A twenty-year-old drug addict attempted suicide by throwing himself head-first from an apartment balcony onto a patch of concrete thirty feet below. The man severely injured his brain and spinal column and went into a coma.
The man’s mother saw her son jump, and invoked Juan Diego’s help to save him. Three days later, the man awoke from his coma—and only a week later he was discharged from the hospital because he had recovered.
The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe falls later this week, on December 12. The shrine that Juan Deigo helped make a reality receives over twenty million pilgrims every year—people come from all over the world to view the image of Mary that still shines from the fabric of Juan Diego's tilma.
St. Juan Diego, the simple and humble man whose faith founded the great shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe—pray for us!
To learn even more about Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoazin, watch this video lecture from the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.