Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

For as long as I can remember it has been a tradition in my family to wake up for las mañanitas de la Virgen de Guadalupe on December 12th, the feast day of the patroness of the Americas. Culturally, the feast day of our Lady of Guadalupe has been a part of my life because I am Mexican but her apparition is not merely a cultural, or miraculous phenomena; it is an invitation to see Mary as our Blessed Mother regardless of cultural identifiers. After all, we all have a mother.  

In 1531 Christianity sought to convert native people in the New World. Juan Diego, a peasant, Aztec man, and a recent convert was walking through the hills of Tepeyac when he saw a beautiful woman surrounded by a ball of light as big as the sun. Speaking in Juan’s native tongue, she called out “Juan Diegito” (“Dear little Juan”) and asked him to go to Mexico City to tell the bishop to build a temple on that hill.

Juan Diego did not feel worthy but went to the bishop anyways. Although Juan Diego spoke with faith and truthfulness, the bishop did not believe this Aztec man and asked for a sign from Our Lady. Guadalupe gave Juan Diego a sign and sent him off to Mexico city again, this time with flowers that she caused to miraculously spring up on the icy hilltops of Tepeyac. When Juan Diego stood in front of the bishop, he dropped the flowers in his tilma to show the bishop and on the tilma was an imprint of Our Lady of Guadalupe, just as Juan Diego described the woman that sent him there. This image can still be seen in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and it has long defied laws of decomposition. 

Although the miraculous tilma of Juan Diego is a wonder in itself, it is not the sacramental value of the tilma that enamors me but the love that a mother has for her children that Mary models for us in these apparitions. 

When I think of saints like Juan Diego and Mary, the Mother of God, I am reminded of how God chooses the ones who often feel unworthy and small. God himself made himself small to dwell amongst us. In this time of Advent I ask myself “How am I making myself small, so that God may work through me?” or perhaps I stop to think, “Have I called my mom to thank her for being?” 

Jocelyn Alcala is a Notre Dame Echo Apprentice serving in the Office of Family Life and Hispanic Ministry in the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana.