Our Lady of Guadalupe
Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
By Fr. Nathan Mamo, S.T.L.
Zechariah 2:14-17 OR Revelation 11:19a & 12:1-6a, 10ab; Luke 1:26-38 OR 39-47
To reiterate, everything which is human and healthy is grounded in reality. Religion, too, must be solidly engaged in life or it becomes silly, superstitious and magic – unworthy of intelligent believers.
Zechariah ministered for at least a brief period (520-518 BC) but maybe for 30 years (until about 490 BC) to encourage the Jews of the Babylonian Captivity to take advantage of the freedom and resources which the Persian Emperor Cyrus had given them in 539 BC to depart from Babylon and return to Jerusalem and the holy land. The freed captives were the great grandchildren of those who had been subjugated and forced to Mesopotamia (some in 598 and more in 587 BC) by the Babylonian Emperor Nebuchadnezzar. But these were born and raised in the foreign land, and were relatively comfortable in it; thus they had resisted the return in attitude if not always in action. And, there were still some Palestinian Jews whose ancestors had avoided the captivity and with whom there was some animosity over leaving the homeland. Zechariah was exhorting a reconciliation, a rebuilding and a renewal as a sign that God again dwelt in his Chosen Land, among his Chosen People. This sign was not merely for Jewish morale; it was for the whole world. It was a divinely ordained restoration of the Jerusalem Temple and God’s presence therein. Centuries later, from a Christian perspective, this passage becomes a prophetic prediction of the divine mystery we call the Incarnation.
An alternative first lesson is found in the three passages from Revelation woven into one. In this, the metaphorical images of the ark (as in “Ark of the Covenant”) in God’s heavenly temple and a woman clothed with the sun are both vessels or containers on or in which God’s real presence is located. Both are affirmations of the powerful reality and nearness of God. The other “signs” that decorate the setting of the woman are indicators of God’s glory and power against the reality of evil and sinfulness which God’s real presence challenges and foils. The dynamic apocalyptic clatter of the dragon sweeping away stars, the birth of the child, and God saving both child and mother all demonstrate the vast superiority and victory of God’s will, power and grace over all evil in the world. This is a gospel message of hope in apocalyptic terms for those 1st Century Christians faced with persecution and physical destruction. The hope is for the 21st Christian Century as well given the messiness of our own lives and world.The choices of gospels for today’s feast day are two parts of Luke’s Incarnation story, what church piety have labeled the Annunciation and the Visitation. The details Luke includes from the oral tradition provide images to the mystery of God’s Word becoming Flesh, especially as artists have used them through the ages. Their more important point, though, is indeed theological: the Word was made flesh and dwells among us! The mysterious and invisible God has entered the physical universe on human terms and scale. We can know God profoundly, not merely at a distance!
These passages are chosen for today’s liturgy to provide some visual imagery for the Incarnation Mystery while imagining the setting the gospel encountered upon arriving in Mezo-America in the very early 16th Century. While the Conquistadors indeed visited a forceful and painful destruction on a sophisticated civilization which they both sought and feared, the gospel message the missionary Friars brought along with them competed with native religious images of dragons and other celestial powers. The native peoples had already perceived the reality of the divine mystery in their own terms. The Christian gospel provided new images for their religious consideration which were embraced all the more once the story spread of the appearances of Mary Theotokos to (Saint) Juan Diego at Tepeyac beginning on December 9th 1531. Much controversy about the historicity of the apparitions and even about Juan Diego himself has arisen and endured over the centuries. The controversy has tended to be among scholars trying to measure the historical details surrounding, or absent from, the reports of the apparitions. But, the popular acceptance of the apparitions has been tremendously effective at conveying healthy and balanced aspects of the Christian gospel, especially in making that gospel deeply integral to the Meso-American social and religious cultures. So, this feast day, with it’s religious images, art and customs, is a forceful witness to the powerful, real and effective presence of the loving and wise God proclaimed by the Gospel of Christ. Since a huge portion of the 21st Century Catholic population traces it’s religious cultural roots through the ongoing Spanish missionary efforts beginning in the late 15th Century, this feast day rightly enjoys an important place on the liturgical calendar among the major feasts of the Church in the all the Americas and the Philippines.