Parishioners at Cristo Rey Church in Beaumont celebrate our Lady of Guadalupe with a reenactment of the Apparition

By: Jennifer Carr Allmon, Associate Director, Texas Catholic Conference 

Dioceses throughout the state of Texas hosted grand celebrations in early December as a way of honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe during her December 12 feast day.  In many ways, these celebrations focus on the beauty of her role as Queen of Mexico and Patroness of the Americas.  Prayers focused on much-needed peace in Mexico and family reunification of immigrants on both sides of the border. The South Texas Catholic highlighted local parish participation in a torch run that started at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico on Oct. 1, and arrived at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on Our Lady’s feast day. On Dec. 4, thousands of people participated in a procession from the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston’s Chancery office to the convention center. Mariachis and a choir gave glory to Our Lady in song. The event also featured a re-enactment of Saint Juan Diego’s appearance to the Virgin Mary. Several hundred “matachines,” indigenous dance groups from various parishes, performed to honor Our Lady of Guadalupe, followed by a recitation of the Holy Rosary and Mass with Daniel Cardinal DiNardo.  In Amarillo, the diocese asked their procession participants to bring images of their national patron saint or virgin to highlight the fact that all are united under one spiritual mother, Our Lady of Guadalupe.

For those who don’t know the history, the Blessed Virgin appeared to St. Juan Diego, a poor Aztec Indian in Mexico in 1531, and called on him to ask the Bishop to build a church there.  When she appeared, she appeared as a pregnant Aztec woman during a time when the Aztecs where struggling against exploitation as slaves.   Bishop Kevin Farrell writes in his blog, “When Mary appeared to a simple Indian, speaking in the Indian tongue, and leaving her image as an Indian woman, the situation changed and the native peoples began flocking to the Catholic faith. It is another example of how the role of Mary is to lead people to her Son.”

Also, this is the only known apparition of the Virgin while pregnant.  She provided St. Juan Diego with “a diversity of roses” to prove to the Bishop that the apparition was real. For her to choose to appear as a native in a recently conquered land and to be pregnant is significant.

During this time period, the Aztecs conducted human sacrificing rituals, killing more than 20,000-40,000 people a year.  The symbol of that Aztec religion was a serpent and Our Lady of Guadalupe appears standing on a serpent.  After her apparition and through the events that followed it, millions of Aztecs converted and the ritual killings eventually stopped.   Many believe that the apparition foretold the “crushing of the serpent.”

Today, more than a million children are aborted in the United States, far more than the numbers sacrificed by the Aztecs.  Our Lady of Guadalupe has also been designated as Protectress of the Unborn. Her image, and that of a rose, is used by pro-life ministries as a symbol of her motherly love for all of humanity, her children. We hope and pray that through her intercession we can end the human sacrifice of abortion in our time.

Our Lady of Guadalupe brings us a message of hope for two issues at the heart of Catholic Social Teaching: the protection of human life, and the sacred recognition of the presence of God among us in the diversity of peoples in the Americas.  We continue to pray, through her intercession, for an end to abortion and for greater compassion in welcoming immigrants in our midst, as she reminds us of our unity as children of God.

Prayer of John Paul II for Life

(copied from www.sancta.org)

O Mary,

bright dawn of the new world,
Mother of the living,
to you do we entrust the cause of life:
Look down, O Mother,
upon the vast numbers
of babies to be born,
of the poor whose lives are made difficult,
of men and women
who are victims of brutal violence,
of the elderly and the sick killed
by indifference or out of misguided mercy.
Grant that all who believe in your Son
may proclaim the Gospel of life
with honesty and love
to the people of our time.
Obtain for them the grace
to accept that Gospel
as a gift ever new,
the joy of celebrating it with gratitude
throughout their lives
and the courage to bear witness to it
resolutely, in order to build,
together with all people of good will,
the civilization of truth and love,
to the praise and glory of God,
the Creator and lover of life.

Pope John Paul II
Encyclical Letter "The Gospel of Life"
Given in Rome, on March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, in the year 1995.