Homily for December 6, 2009

Father Tom’s Homily
2nd Sunday of Advent – Our Lady of Guadalupe
December 6, 2009

Our Lady of Guadalupe (La Virgin) is a treasured symbol of Mexico because she is such a significant person in the history of that country. But the regal woman presented in the famous icon on a poor man’s cloak is not just for Mexicans, but for all of us who are part of the Americas. We all look to her as our Mother.
Consider the dark-skinned image of the Mother of God. It is a clear manifestation of the relationship that God has made with the various people of the Americas.

She was a reconciler in the early history of the Spanish conquest of present-day Mexico and throughout the Americas when violence led to the conquest of the indigenous peoples living there.
To this day, Our Mother of Guadalupe continues to reconcile among the tribes of this hemisphere. That is why she is the Patroness of the Americas.

The Spanish invaders conquered the original Indian nations of present-day Mexico.
The coming of the Spaniards was a terrible tragedy to the people, because they brought with them the unprecedented bloodshed of the conquest. In many places the original tribes of the land were being eliminated. And in the minds of the people, the conquistadores also conquered their own Indian faith.

The Christian faith brought by the Spanish was not widely embraced by the indigenous peoples, because it was the religion of their oppressors, the Spanish invaders.
To them, their gods had died or been destroyed by the invaders. And without their gods, their lives had no purpose.

The image of Mary appeared on the tilma/poncho of Juan Diego on Tuesday, December 12, 1531. On that day the Gospel began to spread rapidly among the Indians people.
Juan Diego was his Christian name. His name in Nauatl, his native language, was Cuauhatlatoatzin, “the talking eagle.” On his way to Mass in a nearby village, Juan Diego heard the sound of music at the top of a hill called Tepeyac.
When he went to investigate, he met a beautiful woman at the top of the hill. He tenderly called her, “my daughter.”
She asked him to go to the bishop named Juan de Zumárraga to ask him to build a temple on Tepeyac. As was to be expected, the bishop and his assistants did not believe this illiterate campesino, Juan Diego. After all, he came from the lowest class among his Nahua people. He was a nobody.

Juan Diego reported back to the beautiful woman at Tepeyac that the bishop wanted a sign. In response Mary asked Juan Diego to pick the fresh roses growing there at the top of Tepeyac. December was not the season for roses, but there they were in abundance.
He did so and Mary arranged them in his tilma, a native poncho made of material taken from a plant. Holding up the edges of the tilma, he was able to carry the roses back to the bishop’s house.
When he opened his tilma to let the roses spill at the feet of the bishop, he and the bishop looked with astonishment at the image of the woman of Tepeyac on the tilma.

The Nahua people, upon seeing this image of a pregnant woman in the colors of their gods, with her face slightly bowed, understood the divine language of the image. They knew she was not a goddess because a god bows before no one.
They knew, however, that she was a very important person because the sun (which they considered a god) radiated from her and she had the colors of a queen.

And what was very significant, she had the color of their skin, she was short like them, and she spoke their language. She told Juan Diego that she was the Mother of God and also the mother of his oppressed people.
Whereas the Spaniards had been derisively calling the native people “los morenitos,” the little brown people, she was affectionately called by the people “La Morenita,” the Little Brown Woman. She was one of them. She made them proud of their race and their culture.
The image of La Morenita is a manifestation of God’s tender love for their people and their culture. That God would give them his mother showed his compassion for them in their suffering.

The image of the Mother of God on Juan Diego’s rough tilma has been for centuries a very special icon. Just as the Sacred Scriptures declare God’s love for us in words, so a sacred icon declares God’s love for us in images.
The icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe proclaims God’s love in sending his own mother to be our mother.

In the mid 1990s we purchased a four-foot statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe and brought it to the church of Guachipilin. When we approached the settlement, the people came to meet us when we were about twenty minutes away from the church.
They reverently carried the statue in procession to the school where they officially welcomed us. But it was obvious that they were giving a very special welcome to the Mother of God who was coming to stay with them. That’s what the icon meant to them.

In recent years the icon, which is on display above the altar in the basilica built on Tepeyac, has been closely examined by scientists.
They are astonished that the tilma, a poncho made of burlap-like material made from a plant looks so fresh and new. Ordinarily the plant material holds up for only a few years.
In 1975 a photograph was able to magnify the image 2,500 times to examine it great detail. At that magnitude they were able to see figures reflected in the eyes of the woman.
There are two men, one a peasant with his hands uplifted in prayer, and the other a man kneeling. The kneeling figure is thought to be the bishop who knelt in amazement when he first beheld the icon.
This is considered to be the image of La Morenita at that moment when she was first seen by the two men as the roses spilled to the floor. That was on December 12, 478 years ago.

We thank God for the beautiful story told in this image. It is the image of the compassion of God. It reassures us, especially in times of difficulty, that the Mother of God embraces us as one of her own children.
She is the Mother of Jesus. She wishes to be our mom too.