On Thursday 12 December 2024 we celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, an extraordinary Marian feast reminds me how much Mary, the Mother of God and Our Mother, really takes seriously her role as Our Mother.
The message she gave to Blessed Juan Diego in 1531 is the following one: My son, I love you. I desire you to know who I am. I am the ever-Virgin Mary; mother of the true God who gives life and maintains its existence. He created all things. He is in all places. He is Lord of Heaven and Earth and I desire a church in this place where your people may experience my compassion. All those who sincerely ask for my help in their work and in their sorrows will know their mother’s near in this place. Here I will see their fears and I will console men and they will be at peace.
Know for certain that I am the perfect and ever Virgin Mary, Mother of the True God. … Here I will show and offer all my love, my compassion, my help and protection. I am your merciful Mother, the Mother of all who love me, of those who cry to me, of those who have confidence in me. I will hear their weeping and their sorrows … their necessities and misfortunes. … Listen, and let it penetrate your heart. … Do not fear any illness or vexation, anguish or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else you need?
In today’s lonely world we need to hear again these powerful words of love that come out from the faithful lips of Our Lady. We need to rediscover with urgency that she is Our Mother. We need to know who she is: Mary is the Mother of God who gives life and preserves what is created. Hence, you and I need her loving intercession before a God who, his very nature is life and loving faithfulness. Mary is the Mother of God who wants to unite all his children into one family. That is why it is so important to pray to her because also she wants to be the Mother of all humanity not simply in theory but, and most of all, in practice.
Pope Benedict XVI explained this point so well in his homily on Monday 1 January 2007, in the occasion of the 40th World Day of Peace and also the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God: Mary is the Spiritual Mother of all humanity, because Jesus on the Cross shed his blood for all of us and from the Cross he entrusted us all to her maternal care.
In a world where the word compassion struggles to find its place within the existential spoken language of humanity, Mary is telling us that she is our compassionate Mother. In his homily on the Solemnity Mary, the Mother of God, on Monday 1, 2024, Pope Francis said: The motherhood of Mary is the path leading us to the paternal tenderness of God, the closest, most direct and easiest of paths. This is God’s “style”: closeness, compassion and tenderness. Indeed, the Mother leads us to the beginning and heart of faith, which is not a theory or a task, but a boundless gift that makes us beloved sons and daughters, tabernacles of the Father’s love. It follows that welcoming the Mother into our lives is not a matter of devotion but a requirement of faith: “If we want to be Christians, we must be ‘Marians’” (SAINT PAUL VI, Homily in Cagliari, 24 April 1970), that is “children of Mary”.
In Mary’s arms we can discover and experience God’s maternal security we all direly need in our lives. In Mary’s listening we experience a God Who, in the book of Exodus, tells us: I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them (Exod 3:7-8). In Mary the Lord see our fears, consoles us and will give us his peace. What more do we need?
Lord, through the loving affection and prayer of Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe, be my love, my compassion, my help and my protection. Through her maternal love help me love you in her, obey you in her, have faith in you through my confidence in her. Lord, hear my weeping and sorrows, my necessities and misfortunes and penetrate my heart thanks to the loving care you constantly and lavishly give me through my Mother Mary. Lord put me under your shadow with Mary’s intercession, empower me with who you are as a fountain of life, with Mary’s prayers. Lord put me in the folds of your mantle with Mary’s spiritual support. Lord draw me close to your heart with and through Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe. Amen.
Can the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe be more relevant than this?