Fr. Robert Gonzales on The Message of Guadalupe: for St. Gianna Oratory

Sermon: The Message of Our Lady of Guadalupe (December 9, 2023

My earliest memory as a young boy around the year 1958, was that of my great-

grandmother Tranquilina Ybarra telling me with great joy the story of Our Lady

of Guadalupe in the small mining town of Morenci, Arizona, where my family

lived at that time. A phrase remains engraved on the screen of my mind as I saw

her joy in telling the story. She said in Spanish, “Lo que los conquisadores

españoles no podían hacer con sus pistolas y armas, la Virgencita lo hizo con

flores”. “What the Spanish conquisadors could not achieve with their guns and

arms, the Virgin did with flowers.” In the short span of 5 years between 5 and 7

million Indigenous were converted to the Catholic faith. Such was the power of

the flowers of Guadalupe.

What may have the 16 th post-conquest Indigenous from the Anahuac Valley of

Mexico seen, when they cast their eyes the image of the Guadalupe on Juan

Diego’s tilma? How might they have interpreted it? What message from the

Almighty might they have comprehended?

Moreover, what a privilege it must have been was for the bishop and his

interpreter to have seen it on Juan Diego’s as the venerable Indigenous let the

flowers fall to the ground that morning of December 12, 1531; when suddenly

seen the image of the celestial Lady appeared on the coarse fabric of the tilma?

What must Juan Diego himself have thought as he realized that his coarse outer

garment now had a heavenly painting depicted upon its roughness? What must

have that family-group of individuals who were also present there (whose

microscopic images have been scientifically discovered in Lady’s corneas) have

thought? We can only speculate. Let the wings of your imagination lift you

somehow into their minds through the grace of God. These are questions for us

this morning as well.

The bishop, his interpreter and the Europeans who first beheld the precious

image would have recognized her as the Lady in the Book of Revelation clothed

with the sun and the moon under her feet; as the Ever Holy Virgin, the Mother of

Our Lord Jesus Christ. The Indians, on other hand, would most certainly have

seen something different given their Mesoamerican culture.

When they first contemplated the image, what would have captivated their

attention was that of a Lady enveloped by the sun. This would have spoken

volumes to them given their cultural and religious convictions. When they

contemplated the Lady, they saw a woman being transformed into the Divine.

Transcendentally speaking, the Lady was in movement towards God, being

changed into the very holiness of God. They would have immediately been

struck by her obvious pregnancy; but a unique pregnancy as represented by the

four petaled flower, symbolic of God, directly above her maternity belt. What

she is depicted as was pregnant with, was divinizing her -- filling her with His

life. Moreover, they would have seen that she was coming from the region of

light, like an eagle of fire. They would have been struck that she was taking a

step forward, towards them; that she was descending from the left side, from the

East.

This stunned and excited those present in the bishop’s presence and they wanted

to hear the story of the momentous events of Tepeyac that happened on

December 9-12, 1531.Again and again Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin must have

repeated the story; as did his own uncle, Juan Bernardino, who was healed of an

outbreak of measles in the early morning of December 12th, a European disease

against which the Indians had no natural immunity. What was that story that

changed them and convinced them that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life?

Even before Fray Marcos de Niza, who had been chosen to explore the country

north of Sonora, and left his name in 1539 engraved on a rock in what is now

South Mountain Park in Phoenix, Arizona the Mother of God, appeared in early

the morning of December 9, 1531 in Anahuac, on the summit of Tepeyacac. She

appeared in the center of the Western hemisphere in the fullness of time for an

indigenous people whose culture and world had been destroyed by European

conquistadores. God sent her to the navel of America (México) to evangelize

according to His way and not man’s, to lead a people into the fullness of truth,

and to open eyes and hearts.

The Celestial Lady came when the old Julian Calendar was still in effect, on

December 12, as the winter solstice was about to take place. God sent her at a

specific place and time, as when He intervened in Palestine when, in the fullness

of time, he raised up the prophet, John the Baptist, to prepare the way for the

imminent coming of His Son (Lk.3:1-6). For God Almighty, All-Knowing, All-

Good, and All-Merciful, knew that for a culture that studied the movements of

the heavens, and which valued the meaning of time and place, significant were

the darkest days of the year before actual day when the sun would begin to be

longer than the night. Yes, it was on December 9, 1531, the Queen of Heaven

first came to Tepeyacac, where before the conquest, the goddess Tonantzin was

worshipped.

Little did Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (57 years of age) know that, as he made

his way to Mass that Saturday morning some 492 years ago, very early in the

morning when it was still dark (the time of fecundity and new beginnings

according to his culture), that he would encounter a Noble Lady from Heaven at

Tepeyacac. Her presence was accompanied by the singing of precious and rare

birds. As Juan Diego began to process that which he was experiencing, he

sensed that he was in presence of the Holy. He thought that he was in the Land

of the flowers, the Land of Heaven; as his grandparents and ancestors had

spoken about.

The rocky crags, mesquites and the nopales of the little hill, Tepeyacac, were

even transformed by the glory of the Virgin’s splendor. The tlalticpac [the world

of man] had become like Ilhuicatl (heaven, the land of the eternal fiesta). For the

God-bearer, the Theotokos, she who is the Ark of the New Covenant, was there.

So did Juan Diego, sense and feel in his heart! “Juan Diego stopped to look and

said to himself, ‘B chance am I worthy of this? Am I deserving of what I hear?

Perhaps I am only dreaming? Am I imagining this in my sleep? Where am I?

Where do I find myself? Maybe I am in the land our ancient ancestors, our

grandparents, told us about, in the land of the flowers, in the land of corn, of our

flesh, of our sustenance? Maybe I am in the land of heaven?’” (Nican Mopohua,

9-10).

As the story of Guadalupe begins, note that the song is disunited, or separated

from the flower to signify that the truth is in gestation, that it is being unfolded.

Then Mary spoke to him, calling him by name in his mother tongue (Juantzin,

Juan Diegotzin). Then she told him: “I am the Perfect, Ever-Virgin Mary, the

Mother of the Most High and True God through Whom We Live, the Creator of

Persons, the Owner of What is Near and Around Us, the Owner of the Sky, the

Owner of the Land ” (NM 26). These were the ancient titles for God in Náhuatl

in pre-conquest times that were not contrary to the Catholic faith that had been

brought to the new world from the old. The heavenly spoke in Juan Diego’s

mother tongue in order to describe the mystery of God.

She then immediately tells Juan Diego the following: “I want very much, I

desire that here they build my sacred little house (noteocatlzin) in which I will

show Him, I will exalt Him on making Him manifest. I will give Him to the

peoples in my personal love, in my compassionate gaze, in my help, in my

salvation” (NM, 26-28). Striking is that the focus of the sacred little house is not

herself, but Christ Jesus, the one who is to be adored in it.

A little later in the First Apparition (verses 29-31) she gives Juan Diego further

important details. She adds that. “…because I am truly your compassionate

mother, yours and of all the people who live together as one in this land, and of

all the other diverse races of people, who love me, who call upon me, who seek

me, those who trust in me.” She tells Juan Diego quite clearly that while she is

his mother existentially speaking in the order of grace, she is also mother to all

others who live together in this land as one, and of all other lineages of people

who love, invoke and seek her by trusting in her intercession. In other words,

she is the New Eve, as St Irrenaeus teaches at the beginning of the Patristic

period.

Then the celestial Lady tells Juan Diego that he is her messenger and that he is

to go to Mexico inform the bishop of her request that a church be constructed on

the plain of the Tepeyac. She subjects her message to the discernment of the

Church because she is not greater than the Church. The bishop to whom the

message is entrusted is the visible head of the Church of Mexico. Fascinatingly,

two other terms are used for the temple that she is requesting: nechalti and

noteocalli. The Lady tells Juan Diego: “And to bring about what my

compassionate and merciful gaze is seeking, go to the palace of the bishop, and

you will say to him that I am sending you, so that you may reveal to him how I

ardently desire that he provide me a house (nechalti) here, that he erect for me a

temple (noteocali) on the plain. You will relate everything to him, all that you

have seen and admired, and what you have heard” (NM 33).

We see that three terms that our Lady uses a kind of a teaching about the kind of

temple, or church, she has in mind. First she is asking that the temple be a

noteoctlzin (my sacred little house); secondly, that it be seen as a nechalti (a

place of familial encounter, a place of warmth and friendship); and thirdly that

the temple be a noteocali (a place where the Sacred is encountered). These three

terms are interlocked with each other and comprise a vision of the Church

whereby the mystical body of Christ can be light to the world because of the

transforming power of Jesus Christ, her Head.

Bishop Zumárraga, the governing priest, then requested a sign from her to

confirm the veracity of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin’s words, and to discern the

authenticity of the words of the Noble Lady from Heaven. It makes perfect sense

that the head of the Church in a new land request some kind of a sign from a

neophyte Christian who had not too long ago been baptized into the Catholic

faith. The Virgin Mary, daughter of the Church, she whom the Second Vatican

Council called “the Most Perfectly Redeemed,” agreed, in her great humility and

docility to the Holy Spirit, to the bishop’s conditions.

How the Virgin teaches about respecting the authority of the Church; rooted in

the Apostolic Tradition! As the story unfolds, after assuring Juan Diego that his

uncle, Juan Bernardino, had been healed, she directs him to climb to the top of

the hill, where she first met him, and that there he would find flowers in the dead

of winter – the completion of the truth. He finds the hill abloom with flowers

and brings them to Mary who rearranges them with her hands in his tilma,

symbolic of his person, directing him not to show the sign to anyone, but the

bishop. As Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin makes his way to the bishop’s residence,

he is profoundly happy and at peace. He carries the truth in the hollow of his

tilma -- next to his heart. Filled with the truth, the humble Indian is a free man,

as he comes into the presence of the bishop, who had interrogated him twice

before.

Now he brings the sign for the prelate who two years earlier had written to the

King of Spain, Charles V, saying that the entire New World was about the be lost

if God Himself did not intervene. Little did he know that on the morning of

December 12, the very anniversary of his being named bishop, that the Celestial

Lady would not only give him the requested sign; but answer the prayers that he

had been directing to heaven.

As the flowers cascaded to the floor, after Juan Diego had relayed to the

governing-priest what the Virgin he had said, what he had seen and marveled at,

the image of the Mother of God, was imprinted on the front part of his cloak, or

tilma – beautiful and clear, with a dynamic theological message to the Aztecs,

despondent at the collapse of their old world-view, that no longer were sacrifices

needed to keep the cosmos moving, but rather God Himself desired to feed

humanity with the precious body and blood of His Son in the Holy Eucharist; a

miracle that happens each time the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered.

Moreover, the Virgin’s message to the conquering Spaniards was that the

Indigenous and children born of the violent clash between the two cultures were

precious to her and to her Son, Jesus. All present in the bishop’s household that

December 12 morning marveled at the image on the tilma of Juan Diego. They

regarded her beautiful mestizo face full of tenderness and wisdom, as a

prophetic call to accept all people regardless of the hue of their skin.

Significantly, all were standing – rooted in the truth that is Guadalupe and the

challenge to live its message, of being centered in God and living together in

this land as one.

In closing, as we reflect this morning on the Celestial Lady’s message, let us not

forget its radicality. Her message is not easy. It involves the cross and dying unto

ourselves. The celestial Lady challenges all of us to love our neighbor, to

forgive, to strengthen bonds between people, to defend the dignity of human

beings who are created in the image and likeness of God, to fight against

anything that fosters alienation and impoverishes the human spirit. She is asking

for the conversion of the heart which is the true healing the world needs today.

In a word, the Blessed Mother is challenging her children calling us to make

room in our for Jesus Christ, who alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life

(Jn.14:6).

She prophetically challenges us to re-discover, to strengthen our roots in the

Most True God, the Giver of Life, the Creator of Persons, the Owner of What is

Near and Immediate, the Owner of the Sky, the Owner of the Land (Nican

Mopohua, 26). Thereby rooting ourselves in the Living God, strengthened by

His Grace given to us through the Sacraments in the true Church founded by

Him, we await the glorious Second Advent of Our Lord Jesus Christ, when he

shall comes in glory to create the “new heavens and the new earth”, as is indeed

symbolized by the Celestial Lady on St. Juan Diego’s Tilma.

Fr. Robert A. Gonzales, Ph.D

December 12, 2023

Sermon at St.Gianna’s Oratory, Tucson, Arizona