Tuesday in the Second Week of Advent, December 12, 2023

The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Revelation 11:19a; 12, 1-6; 10

God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple.  A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems. Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth. She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne. The woman herself fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have salvation and power come, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed.”

The Holy Church celebrates the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on this day.  In 1754, after rigorous investigations of the events on the Hill of Tepeyac near the site for what became México City in December of 1531, Pope Benedict XIV established this feast.  It is the first Church feast to commemorate an apparition on the Blessed Virgin.  Through this apparition God called the indigenous people of the Americas  to himself through the Blessed Virgin Mary, who appeared as a young Aztec woman. Her image, imprinted miraculously on the peasant Juan Diego’s mantle, remains fresh to this day and can be seen by anyone who makes the pilgrimage to the Basilica erected on the site.  Quite apart from the miracle of the image and how it came to be imprinted on the cloak as well as how it has retained its coloring over five centuries is the the miracle that the tilma exists at all.  Woven out of cactus fibers, it should have decayed within a decade of its creation, especially since it has been on public display, mostly in the open air, all these years.  The appearance of the Virgin as an Aztec maiden showed the native people that the God for whom she spoke did not live faraway and belonged to the Spaniards but who was close to them.  Following the appearances and the miracle of the image the people, who had resisted the preaching of the priests sent to them, now clamored for baptism.  

The above reading from the Book of Revelation is one of the options for the First Reading for this Feast.  Primarily the Woman in the reading signifies the Holy Church who is with child, that is, giving birth to believers in the new life of Baptism.  Since the eighth century, the Church has also understood how this Woman also signifies the Blessed Virgin Mary. She appears in the reading as a woman clothed with the sun, that is, she is refulgent with the grace of Almighty God.  She stands upon the moon, showing that she will outlast time.  She wears a crown of twelve stars which signifies her place in heaven as one uniquely chosen by God.  She is with child, by which we can understand the Son of God.  She wails aloud in her continual intercession with the Father for those who will be her adopted children in the Faith.  The dragon — the devil — ever seeks to prevent the redemption of the human race by attacking our faith in the Son of God.  The woman herself flees to a deserted place that is prepared for her: she remains in our world through her maternal care for us even as she reigns with her Son in heaven.

“Now have salvation and power come, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed.”  All of heaven cries aloud, declaring that the power of the devil is now overthrown, and that his head is crushed under the Blessed Mother’s heel.