December 12 – Our Lady of Guadalupe
Zechariah 2:14-17
Luke 1:39-47

A. Text and Context
• One of the most venerated icons in the history of Marian devotion is the most celebrated icon of Mary in the image of the Our Lady of Guadalupe
• The icon of the Our lady of Guadalupe has been subjected to a battery of scientific testing and until today it continues to hurdle the rigors of modern examinations that even the most discriminating believer can no longer doubt the authenticity of the image
• The gospel today tells us of Mary doing the second joyful mystery of the holy rosary; her visitation to her cousin Elizabeth
• This visitation occurred more than 2000 years ago. And today we commemorate another visitation in the history of our Catholic faith; the visitation of the woman Mary to the Indians of Mexico in the year 1531
• As we celebrate the fiesta of the Our Lady of Guadalupe, we bear in mind that the good lady continues her visitations to all the faithful devotees of the world by giving a very impressive witness through the miracles and prodigies of her icon that would convince even the most hardened minds of unbelievers
• The icon of the Our Lady of Guadalupe has been miraculously impressed or supernaturally painted upon the tilma or the cloak of the lowly farmer Juan Diego
• At this period of time, many Indians whose faith borders between folk religiosity and fanaticism were converted to the Catholic faith because of this miracle

B. Human Situation
• That was 1531. Today we are now in the 21st century and again the same image has always been the subject of curiosity and controversy so that it continues to be subjected to scientific testing just to convince the most discriminating believer of its authenticity. The icon was meant for the past, the present, and the future
• And what did the scientists found? The eyes of Mary in the icon or image were magnified a thousand times. And the scientists were so amazed of what they discovered. Deep in the eyes of Mary yield another image! That of Juan Diego in front of the bishop with another man!
• The discovery baffled the scientist to this very day because it will only mean that the icon of the Our Lady of Guadalupe was designed by God to withstand even the rigors of science in the modern century
• The image imprinted in her eyes would only mean that Mary herself interceded and was present and was all along together with Juan Diego. Mary was there and she witnessed everything
• The scientists were baffled by this because images can only be reflected in the living eyes of a person. It cannot happen in an image or a portrait. It is humanly impossible to happen
• And there it was, the episode when Juan Diego was desperately convincing the bishop that he saw the virgin in the hill of Tepeyac and her request is to build a church on the same hill of her apparition
• Prior to the conversion of the Aztecs or the Indians to Christianity by the Spaniards, they were pagans. And they offer bloody human sacrifices, especially innocent children. It was a Satanic worship
• They worship a serpent and they were waiting for a serpent goddess who will come to restore order in their life
• The name of the goddess is Coatalocpia, a word in the language of Juan Diego in Nahuatl which means the woman who crushes the serpent
• Was it mere coincidence that the woman Mary is the new Eve who will also crush the head of a serpent after Adam and Eve were exiled in paradise?
• It is more than that because the apparition of Mary to Juan Diego is God’s answer that the old serpent will no longer be worshipped. It stopped the killings of the innocent children as sacrifice because Mary is now the goddess that they have waited for so long
• It was Mary’s visitation to the culture of the Aztecs of Mexico that ended the Satanic religion
• And the word Coatalocpia is mistakenly overheard and pronounced by the Spaniards as Guadalupe. And so the church built is in honor of the Our Lady of Guadalupe named after a church in Spain
• As if it is God’s divine providence that the goddess Coatalocpia who crushes the head of a serpent is also Mary who now assumes a Catholic name known as the Our Lady of Guadalupe who was promised by God in Genesis as the woman who will also crush the serpent

C. Challenge
• What lessons do we learn in the celebration of this fiesta?
• God through Mary destroys paganism as an enemy of Christianity. Devotion to Mary will drive us to become faithful to God and faithful to the Catholic faith
• God through Mary visits his people from time to time through her apparitions. In Mexico at that time the Indians were discriminated upon because of their color similar to the Indios we have in the Philippines
• What Mary did was to appear as the Lady of Guadalupe with the face and beauty of a young Indian maiden. This has uplifted the Indians because their goddess looked very much like them. The result, it has become a deterrent to racial discrimination
• God through Mary revealed to the Indians of Mexico the importance of human life. Mary was pregnant in her apparitions in Guadalupe and this signaled her devotees to continue the birth of human life, hence, the bloody sacrifices ended
• Their devotion to the Lady prompted the people to halt abortions. Devotion to her was instrumental to stop the killings of the unborn.

C. Challenge
• Thus we are all challenged to continue to enrich our faith through the devotion to our Lady
• Devotion to her will put an end to the senseless worship of the modern idols of the world today. The idols of fame, money, and power. Devotion to her will restore us back to God in faith just like what she did in Mexico
• Mary suffers with the people. Recourse through her strengthens our identity as a people just like what she did to the discriminated Indians of Mexico
• Devotion to Mary promotes life, a life that is humane and a life with God just like what she did to put an end to the bloody sacrifices
• Mary under the name of the Our Lady of Guadalupe will soon put an end to the killings of the unborn because she upholds human life
• Thus the ways of God are mysterious and who can stop God to make use of the Mother of Jesus to direct the spiritual life of the people back to her Son. Nobody
• And the Lady of Guadalupe will continue to give her intercession to obtain for us the grace of God that we need in order to go back to her Son every time we have recourse to her
• The feast of the Our Lady of Guadalupe is utterly relevant to the 2nd coming of our Lord as we celebrate advent as it says in the 1st reading Zechariah “Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! See, I am coming to dwell among you, says the LORD.”

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Luke 1 verse 39-47