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"Blest is she who trusted that the Lord's words to her would be fulfilled." St. Luke 1:45
Our Lady of Tepeyac, Star of the New Evangelisation, pray for us.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of us all,
help us and intercede for us with the Lord of All.
Links:1. Star of the New Evagelization (Knights of Columbus website)
2. Mother Adela on Our Lady of Guadalupe
3. Zenit: Bishop Conley on Our Lady of Guadalupe (Also, Lincoln Archdiocese)
4. "Our Lady of Guadalupe and the New Evangelization"
5. The Star of Evangelization (Catholic Charismatic Center, Houston)
6. Excerpts from an Address of Cardinal Burke:
Mary as our model in fostering the new springtime of faith
The following are excerpts of the address given by Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke, Archbishop emeritus of St Louis, U.S.A., and Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, at the Springtime of Faith Summit. The event was held at the University of Dallas Campus in Rome on 14 November [2009] on the theme: "Mary as our Model in Fostering the New Springtime of Faith".
The apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Tepeyac Hill and at the home of Juan Bernardino, uncle of St Juan Diego, from December 9th through 12th in 1531, are most remarkable among the approved apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The maternal tenderness and directness of the conversations of Our Lady with St Juan Diego are truly striking. The five apparitions over four days are marked by a certain urgency and insistent message, and have their culmination in the altogether remarkable divine writing of the image of Our Lady on the tilma of St Juan Diego. By means of the tilma — miraculous both for the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and for the uncharacteristic durability of its cactus-cloth material — Our Lady of Guadalupe has never ceased to appear to pilgrims who look upon the tilma which is truly alive with her image.
The apparitions and message of Our Lady of Guadalupe underline both the infinite transcendence of God and his unceasing mercy toward all men without boundary. At the very beginning of the first apparition, Our Lady of Guadalupe immediately identifies herself to St Juan Diego with these words: "I am the perfect and ever virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the God of truth through whom everything lives, the Lord of all things near us, the Lord of heaven and earth".1 The Blessed Virgin Mary [then] declares the intention of her apparition: "I want very much to have a little house built here for me, in which I will show him [God], I will exalt him and make him manifest".2
The Mother of God continues: "I will give him to the people in all my personal love, in my compassion, in my help, in my protection: because I am truly your merciful Mother, yours and all the people who live united in this land and of all other people of different ancestries, my lovers, who love me, those who seek me, those who trust in me. Here I will hear their weeping, their complaints and heal all their sorrows, hardships and sufferings".3
Coming to Our Lady of Guadalupe on pilgrimage, the pilgrim experiences her divine maternity in an ever greater closeness to her Divine Son, our Savior. It is by drawing pilgrims to her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ — above all, in the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist — that the Mother of God hears the cries of God's children.
Rightly, Our Lady of Guadalupe is called the Star of the New Evangelization because she announces and presents the mystery of God's love and mercy in all of its newness, as if for the first time, so that once again men may come to know and have faith in her Divine Son, place their hope in him alone, and live in his love. In the same way, Our Lady of Guadalupe is our model in fostering the New Springtime of Faith, the new encounter with Christ, which leads each of us to the conversion of our life and transforms our society ever more into a civilization of love.
Historical Context
Certainly, the apparitions and message of Our Lady of Guadalupe respond to the condition of man in every period of Christian history, for, even though souls have been purified of the stain of original sin through the life-giving waters of Baptism, the effects of original sin have continued to cause men the greatest suffering and sorrow. The Christian vocation received at Baptism is the call to carry the Cross with Christ, in order that the Christian may reach the destiny of his earthly pilgrimage in the Kingdom of Heaven.4 Our Lady's apparitions and message at Tepeyac Hill and at the home of Juan Bernardino in December of 1531 responded, however, to a most dolorous manifestation of
man's sinfulness.
Our Lady appeared on the American continent at a time when many men were drifting far from God. The situation in what is today Mexico City was marked then by the violence and darkness which are always the fruit of man's rebellion against God. On the one hand, under a long and macabre leadership, the religion of the native Americans was increasingly marked by a diabolical worship which demanded constant and mass human sacrifice. Warren H. Carroll, historian and founder of Christendom College in Fort Royal, Virginia, has described the horror of the situation in his book, Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Conquest of Darkness.5
On the other hand, the arrival and activity of European explorers in the same territory had developed into a conflict between the Spanish and Native Americans, which threatened an increasingly massive destruction of human life and goods. The story of the conflict is quite complicated. It was marked both by the sincere desire to evangelize a pagan people, including the elimination of the practice of human sacrifice, and by the lack of respect for the human dignity of the Native Americans, manifested in cruel executions and other violations of human life.6
With her apparitions and her message, the work of the Franciscan Friars who had been laboring diligently to evangelize the Native Americans and to bring their fellow Spaniards to an ever greater conversion of heart, under the spiritual leadership of their confrere, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, First Bishop of Mexico, bore fruit which was truly miraculous. While it is estimated that until the time of the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe some 200,000 Native Americans had received the gift of faith and Baptism, among them St Juan Diego and his wife, from the time of her apparitions until the deaths of Bishop Juan de Zumárraga and St Juan Diego, who died within days of each other in the Spring of 1548, some 9 million Native Americans were baptized.7
Our Lady of Guadalupe chose as her messenger one of the Native Americans who had been evangelized and baptized by the Franciscan Friars. When Our Lady first appeared to St Juan Diego, he was, in fact, on his way to receive post-baptismal instruction in the faith, on 9 December 1531, then observed as the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Spanish Empire.
St Juan Diego advanced the First Evangelization by following the Star, the Mother of God. He told pilgrims about her apparitions and message over the remaining 17 years of his life. The place of his catechesis was Our Lady's chapel, constructed by both the Spanish and the Native Americans, the chapel in which her miraculous image was enthroned by Bishop Juan de Zumárraga on 26 December 1531, just fourteen days after her final apparition.8 St Juan Diego shows us how to follow the model of the Mother of God in advancing the New Springtime of Faith.
Through the gift of faith and Baptism, the Spanish and the Native Americans became one people, a new race, the mestiza people whose distinctive features are seen most perfectly in the face of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Since the time of the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the unity of the people in the Catholic faith has been severely tested, especially during times of persecution of the Church in Mexico, but the Mexican people has remained united, invoking the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
A sterling example of the fruit of the unceasing spiritual maternity of Our Lady of Guadalupe is seen in the martyrdom of Blessed Miguel Agustin Pro on 23 November 1927, during a cruel persecution of the Church. On one of the walls of the cell in which he awaited execution, Blessed Miguel Pro inscribed the prayer: "¡Viva Cristo Rey! ¡Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!",9 "Long live Christ the King! Long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!".
Painting by the hand of Antonella Cappuccio
in 2009 for the Knights of Columbus
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Star of the New Evangelisation, pray for us.
