By Rebecca A. Sanford
Special to The Texas Catholic
“Am I not here, I who have the honor to be your mother” (Nican Mopohua, 119)? These are the words the Blessed Mother spoke to St. Juan Diego on December 12, 1531 as recorded in the Nican Mopohua, the first written account of her words completed during Juan Diego’s lifetime. In her first apparition to him on Tepeyac Hill she had revealed, “I am truly the ever-perfect Holy Virgin Mary, who has the honor to be the Mother of the one true God for whom we all live, the Creator of people, the Lord of all around us and of what is close to us, the Lord of Heaven, the Lord of Earth. I want very much that they build my sacred little house here, in which I will show Him, I will exalt Him upon making Him manifest, I will give Him to all people in all my personal love, Him that is my compassionate gaze, Him that is my help, Him that is my salvation. Because truly I am honored to be your compassionate mother, yours and that of all the people that live together in this land, and also of all the other various lineages of men; those who love me, those who cry to me, those who seek me, those who trust me. Because there {at my sacred house} truly will I hear their cry, their sadness, in order to remedy, to cure all their various troubles, their miseries, their pains” (26-32).
In June, Bishop Burns led a pilgrimage to the apparition site of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City seeking the blessings she promised nearly 500 years ago as he guides our diocese through the Synod process over the coming years. The core of the group were members of the Synod Preparatory Commision along with some other local leaders including 10 fantastic priests (two bishops!), two Nashville Dominican Sisters (everyone’s favorites), several single women and men and a half dozen married couples (or parts of couples). It is remarkable that when Bishop Burns wants to better share God’s love and meet the needs of his people, Bishop not only calls together a dynamic and gifted team and asks them to work tirelessly to help him, but he rightly begins by going to the Blessed Mother, the patroness of our diocese, of our continent, the mother of all people, to ask for her help and guidance.
A pilgrimage has three parts: leaving home and ordinary life, encountering the sacred in a specific place, and returning home, changed. Some may ask why a pilgrimage is necessary when our God is with us always and everywhere, when the very body and blood of almighty God enters human space and time every day on every altar at every Holy Mass celebrated around the world, when the Blessed Mother is always our mother, the personal gift of Christ from the cross, whether or not we are able to make a trip to visit an apparition site. I have come to believe the short answer to this question is that it is not necessary, but it is, however, a profound and special gift. God is so outrageously creative and lavishly generous in sharing his love, seeking to draw all people to himself, that he has mysteriously orchestrated times and places where Heaven and Earth intersect with such a unique intensity that he makes those holy sites a continual source of blessing to pilgrims.
The diocesan pilgrimage participants were blessed by daily Mass, morning and evening prayer together, daily rosary, an informative and humorous local guide, and a variety of unique experiences like lunch in an ancient cave. Key points of pilgrimage included, of course, the Basilica and the Tilma, the burial place of St. Juan Diego and his uncle, Juan Bernadino, a rosary walk up Tepeyac Hill, and Mass at the church built on the site of St. Juan Diego’s home where the Virgin of Guadalupe simultaneously appeared to and healed Juan Bernadino. It was blessing upon blessing.
One concept that impressed our pilgrims was a statement by a priest who greeted them at St. James Church, the site of St. Juan Diego’s catechesis and baptism, who explained, “People think that when they come to visit the Tilma they will be seeing the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, but what they realize is that she sees them.” This is the truth. We can take Our Blessed Mother at her word. She claims us as her children, just as she claimed St. Juan Diego and first, Our Lord Jesus. She is our mother who sees us and has promised her help and protection. A mother’s gaze springs from a life giving love. The nourishment she has personally provided for her child’s body and soul since conception continues even when their bodies are no longer joined. She has unique knowledge of her child’s giftedness and understands her child’s specific needs. All mothers can certainly identify with the desire to meet those needs and guide her child to his or her greatest flourishing, but Our Blessed Mother, through her commission from her Divine Son truly has the God-given power to always deliver what she has promised.
The Mexican people have rightly claimed the Virgin of Guadalupe’s maternal promise par excellence and their culture is bursting with celebrations of her affections, but those of us who are not blessed to live in the specific place on Earth she appeared can claim her as well, for she has claimed us too. As we prepare for the 500th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin of Guadalupe let each of us become pilgrims as best we can and seek to encounter the Virgin of Guadalupe and receive her maternal care and protection in a new way. Let us follow the lead of our Bishop Burns now and St. Pope John Paul II at the onset of his papacy and turn to our Blessed Mother. We have two sacred shrines to the Virgin of Guadalupe right here in our diocese, our Cathedral Shrine and at the University of Dallas which is consecrated to the Virgin of Guadalupe and has a beautiful statue of the Virgin and stone from Tepeyac central to campus, making a pilgrimage accessible to all. Let every culture, in the Diocese of Dallas, in Texas, in the Americas and throughout the world, call upon Our Mother and receive and reflect the truth that she is with us, she cradles us in her arm, and knowing she sees us intimately, let us entrust ourselves to her care and protection.
Rebecca A. Sanford is the first lady of the University of Dallas.