“…Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection?...” (Our Lady of Guadelupe).
When Our Lady of Guadelupe appeared to Saint Juan Diego in Mexico in the sixteenth century, the Inca Empire was in turmoil. A theocracy – which means a society that was based around religion – was crumbling with the introduction of Catholicism to the area.
Now, the Inca civilisation was known for religious practices that are considered terrible and evil and barbaric, but for that people and that religion, practices including Human Sacrifices, were a way to make the ultimate offering to the Gods as the ultimate form of commitment.
Now, though I could never condone or support anything as terrible as human sacrifice, I can understand how terrible a time it must have been for that civilisation to have experienced the huge shifts and upheaval that were associated with the destruction of their religion and way of life and the replacement of that way with the Way, the Truth and the Light of the Catholic Church…
And it was during that time that the Blessed Virgin appeared to a humble man who was a recent convert to Catholicism… And THAT was the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady of Guadelupe. And in that apparition the Blessed Virgin was the Merciful Mother – the Comforter. The Blessed Virgin offered comfort not only to Saint Juan Diego, but also to the other people who were learning new ways and struggling with the change.
And the Blessed Virgin was able to do that because she too experienced sudden and life-changing change in her lifetime…
“In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.’” (Luke 1:39-470).
Immediately following the Annunciation, which we commemorate during the First Joyful Mystery of the Most Blessed Rosary, the Blessed Virgin went – leaving everything and still probably reeling from the news of the Angel – and went to see her cousin Elizabeth as instructed and which we commemorate in the Second Joyful Mystery of the Most Holy Rosary.
And when she came to visit saint Juan Diego, she comforted him with these words…
“Listen, put it into your heart, my youngest and dearest son, do not let anything afflict you and be not afraid of illness or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Are you not in the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else you need? Let nothing else worry you, disturb you.”
And as I imagine those words today, my eyes fill with tears, because it seems to me that the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady of Guadelupe, says the same words to me, right inside my soul…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.