Do Whatever He Tells You
Votive Mass of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Marian Catechist Apostolate Day
Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe
La Crosse, Wisconsin
10 October 2026
Rv 11, 19a; 12, 1-6a.10ab
Lk 1, 26-38
Homily
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The vision of Saint John Apostle and Evangelist, recounted in today’s reading from the Book of Revelation, depicts the cosmic conflict between Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the “male child” Who was “destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod,”[1] and Satan, “a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns.”[2] Satan wants to destroy Christ at His coming into the world, for He recognizes that He is the Anointed One, the Messiah, Who will save the world, establishing “the Kingdom of our God.”[3] He recognizes in the “woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars,”[4] the woman of whom God had spoken to him after the Fall of Adam and Eve, promising to defeat him and to save man from his deadly lies: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”[5]
While the conflict between Satan, with his cohorts, and Our Lord, with His Holy Angels and His Mystical Body – Militant, Suffering, and Glorious – , continues until the Last Day, the Day of Our Lord’s Return in Glory to consummate His saving work, the final chapter of its history is already written. It is the eternal reality of the victory of God the Son Incarnate, for God the Son has become man, has suffered and died on the Cross to save man from sin, and is risen from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father, in order to remain with man always in the Church, leading him away from sin and death and guiding him on the way of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful: the way to eternal life.
At the Annunciation, the Archangel Gabriel declared to the Virgin Mary the great truth of the Redemptive Incarnation:
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.[6]
When Mary expressed wonderment about how she could be faithful to her consecration of perpetual virginity and yet be the Mother of the Savior, the Archangel Gabriel gave expression to the mystery of her Divine Maternity: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”[7]
Trusting in the Lord’s promise, as proclaimed by His Archangel, Mary Immaculate responded: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”[8] With her response, she became the Mother of the Christ, God the Son Incarnate Who is the eternal victor over Satan and all evil spirits, and the Mother of Divine Grace for all who would come to life in Christ through Baptism and thus be called to win – through, with, and in Him – the victory over sin and death, the victory of divine love and eternal life.
God is ever true to His promises. From the moment of the Annunciation, God the Son has taken our human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary, in order to remain with us always, until He brings His saving work to its fullness on the Last Day. At the Annunciation, the vision of Saint John Apostle and Evangelist finds its solid and enduring foundation: “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.”[9]
Satan and his cohorts continue to accuse us before God, that is, they never rest from their attempts to beguile us and to lead us away from Christ and the eternal salvation which He alone gives us. They, endowed with preternatural power, like the “great red dragon” whose “tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth,”[10] can appear beyond our power to resist, but we, by the Mystery of the Redemptive Incarnation, are, as Saint Paul reminds us, endowed with supernatural power to fight the good fight, to finish the race, and to keep the faith,[11] trusting that Our Incarnate Savior has “laid up for [us] the crown of righteousness” which He will “award … to all who have loved his appearing.”[12] If only we turn to Our Lord each day, if only we “do whatever He tells us,”[13] as His Mother instructs us, if only we are obedient to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, He, without measure and without cease, will pour forth into our hearts, from His glorious-pierced Heart, His own life, the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit which always conquers Satan and his works of sin and death.
How daunting, indeed seemingly impossible, before the forces of Satan so active in our midst, is the work of the Marian Catechist Apostolate! Thanks to the luminous writings of the beloved Servant of God Father John Anthony Hardon of the Society of Jesus, the Marian Catechists receive the doctrinal and spiritual formation to teach the Catholic Faith in its integrity for the glory of God and for the salvation of souls, especially the souls of those who depend upon us to hand on to them the gift of faith which we have first received as a gift from God. Through the doctrinal formation of the Apostolate, we come to know ever more profoundly Our Lord present with us in His Mystical Body, the Church. Through the spiritual formation of the Apostolate, we come to love ever more ardently Our Lord living in our midst and giving us confidence, courage, and strength to be His “fellow workers in the truth,”[14] in accord with our vocation in life and the particular gifts with which He has endowed us. The doctrinal and spiritual formation always work together: the more we know Our Lord, the more we are inspired to love Him.
We give praise and thanks to God today for the gift of the Marian Catechist Apostolate to the Church by celebrating the Votive Mass of Our Lady of Guadalupe, into whose maternal care the Servant of God Father John Hardon placed the Apostolate from its foundation. Privileged to work with the Servant of God during the last years of his life and the first years of the Apostolate, I am witness to how he faithfully placed the Apostolate into the loving care of the Virgin Mother of God, Our Lady of Guadalupe.
We celebrate the wondrous manifestation of the truth of the Redemptive Incarnation at Tepeyac, in present-day Mexico City, from December 9th through 12th of 1531. When the Virgin Mother of God appeared to Saint Juan Diego on December 9th, she declared clearly the great mystery of her cooperation with her Divine Son in His work of salvation:
Know, know for sure my dearest and youngest son, that 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 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.[15]
At the same time, the Mother of God called upon Saint Juan Diego to be, under her maternal care, the messenger of her Divine Son, drawing others to Him Who alone is our life and our salvation. God miraculously left her image on the tilma of Saint Juan Diego, so that she could continue to call men to be, like Saint Juan Diego, messengers of Christ in the world. As in no other apparition of Our Lady, God has miraculously left for us her image, so that she can continue to meet us and to lead us to her Divine Son with the clear and firm maternal counsel: “Do whatever he tells you.”[16] Embracing the Marian Catechist Apostolate, under the protection and with the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we are drawn into an ever more intimate relationship with Our Lord. We are drawn to know Him more profoundly and to love Him more ardently.
Today, let us confide the Marian Catechist Apostolate and ourselves once again into the all-loving arms of Our Lady of Guadalupe, trusting that we, resting our hearts, one with her Immaculate Heart, in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, her Divine Son, can be His faithful messengers, His “fellow workers in the truth.”[17] One in heart with the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin of Guadalupe, let us now lift up our hearts to the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus. Let us put aside any sense of discouragement or helplessness because of our personal limitations or present circumstances of life. Let us entrust our hearts entirely into the Sacred Heart of Jesus Who has won for us, in our human nature, the victory of love and eternal life. Our Lady of Guadalupe will never fail us. She will never fail to help us to live in Christ Who alone is our life and salvation.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
[1] Rev 12, 5.
[2] Rev 12, 3.
[3] Rev 12, 10.
[4] Rev. 12, 1.
[5] Gen 3, 15.
[6] Lk 1, 31-33.
[7] Lk 1, 35.
[8] Lk 1, 38.
[9] Rev 12, 10.
[10] Rev 12, 4.
[11] Cf. 2 Tim 4, 7.
[12] 2 Tim 4, 8.
[13] Jn 2, 5.
[14] 3 Jn 8.
[15] “Sábelo, ten por cierto, hijo mío, el más pequeño, que yo soy en verdad la perfecta siempre Virgen Santa María, que tengo el honor de ser Madre del verdaderísimo Dios por quien se vive, el Creador de las personas, el Dueño de la cercanía y de la inmediación, el Dueño del cielo, el Dueño de la tierra.” “Apéndice A, El Nican Mopohua,” in Carl Anderson y Monseñor Eduardo Chávez, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. Madre de la civilización del amor (México, D.F.: Random House Mondadori, S. A. de C. V., 2010), p. 214, n. 26. [NMEsp]. English translation: “Appendix A, The Nican Mopohua,” in Carl A. Anderson and Msgr. Eduardo Chávez, Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love (New York: Doubleday, 2009), p. 173, no. 26. [NMEng].
[16] Jn 2, 5.
[17] 3 Jn 8.