Our Lady of Guadalupe - the patron of The Americas.
According to tradition, Mary appeared to Juan Diego, who was an Aztec convert to Christianity, on four occasions between December 9 and December 12, 1531. During her first apparition she requested that a shrine to her be built on the spot where she appeared, Tepeyac Hill (now in a suburb of Mexico City). However, the local bishop hesitated to act on this request.
Mary appeared to Juan Diego a second time on December 9 after his meeting that day with the bishop and told him to return and try again.
On December 10 Juan Diego met with the bishop, who this time demanded a sign before he would approve construction of a church. Mary then appeared a third time to Juan Diego, who told her of the bishop’s demand for a sign.
On December 12, she made her fourth appearance, ordering Juan Diego to collect roses from the hill and bring them to the bishop. Miraculously, there were roses blooming on the hill, despite it being winter. Moreover, the roses were native to Castile, a region in Spain that was the homeland of the bishop. In his audience with the bishop on that day, Juan Diego opened his tilma (cloak), letting dozens of roses fall to the floor and revealing the image of Mary imprinted on the inside of the cloak—the image that is now venerated in the Basilica of Guadalupe. Mary is also said to have appeared to Juan Diego’s dying uncle, Juan Bernardino, and restored him to health.
If Mary had voted in the most-recent U.S. election, for whom would she have put her cross on the ballot paper?
Her own Manifesto would perhaps give us the answer:
MARY'S MAGNIFICAT
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.
For he has looked with favour on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our forebears,
to Abraham and his children forever.
MAGNIFICAT FOR TODAY
Merciful God, may Mary’s song be heard through the ages,
in our own land, in the Americas, throughout the world;
drowning out the din of Christmas chaos.
May it be heard by the victims of violence
in the ears of the traumatised in Syria, and Ukraine.
May it be a song that stirs reverent fear
in the hearts of those who assume power.
And may the joyful promises of justice and overturned power
fill all our hearts to overflowing action. Amen.
~ posted on the Monthly Prayer page of the Christian Aid website. http://www.christianaid.org.uk/
God, Father of mercies,
who placed your people under the singular protection
of your Son's most holy Mother,
grant that all who invoke the Blessed Virgin of Guadalupe,
may seek with ever more lively faith
the progress of peoples in the ways of justice and of peace.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
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