Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Today's Mass Readings

In my iconography class at the seminary, we paint sacred icons in a traditional Byzantine-Slav style. Christ and Mary are depicted as persons with Mediterranean appearances, corresponding to the places where the original artworks developed as much as trying to be culturally sensitive. However, I have been asked if Jesus and saints could be depicted in other ethnic features. In the case of Jesus and Mary, I will allow this, since the Church throughout the ages has experienced them appearing in various ethnic features. This is a reminder that Jesus Christ is the universal Savior of the world and that Mary is the mother of a new spiritual people.

The most famous example of this is Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mary allows herself to appear to Juan Diego as a mestizo, the child of indigenous and Spanish peoples in Latin America. Missionaries had struggled to convert local populations and there was even some suspicion in Europe as to whether New World peoples had the capacity for the gospel. Our Lady of Guadalupe’s appearance reassured the Aztecs that Christianity was for them too. The fact that she would come to this people validated the work of missionaries in Mexico and throughout the New World.

The Annunciation gospel describes Our Lady’s virginal conception of the Eternal Word made flesh. If Jesus is our brother by adoption, then Mary is also our Mother. Remaining a virgin, she shows us that she came to make us children according to the spirit and not slaves to sin as the descendants of Adam and Eve were subject. She is the Mother of all peoples. And while some have been put off from Catholicism because of devotion to Mary, I have seen over and over how Mary is truly the Star of Evangelization. Where Mary is accepted as Mother, we find fervent Christians.

Reflection by Fr. Pachomius Meade, OSB