Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
After the Annunciation from the angel Gabriel, Mary makes her way in haste to visit her cousin, Elizabeth. The encounter is one of joy and recognition of God’s holy action and presence among them.
Similarly, on this feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we commemorate Mary’s visit to the people of a new society that was forming in present-day Mexico with the arrival of the Spanish, a society whose origins were marked by violence and bloodshed. Seeing the people’s plight, she asked for a shrine to be built in her honor where she would “hear their cry, their sadness, to remedy, to cure all their various troubles, their miseries, their pains.”
Mary is the Mother of Encounter for a world and for hearts that are often broken and divided. Oh Mother, whose womb was the place of encounter for the human and the divine, keep us under the shadow of your protection, help us to be ever more like your Son.