Sermon on the Feast of the Dedication of the Church of St. Mary of the Snow

Feast of the Dedication of the Church of St. Mary of the Snow

Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe

La Crosse, Wisconsin

5 August 2024

Sir 24, 14-16

Lk 11, 27-28

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

When the Virgin Mother of God appeared to Saint Juan Diego, her very first words to him declared her identity: “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 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.”[1] From the ancient symbols on her vesture, which miraculously remains with us as God imprinted it on the tilma or mantle of Saint Juan Diego, it was clear that she is pregnant with the Divine Child. She declares and manifests to Saint Juan Diego the Mystery of Faith, the Mystery of the Redemptive Incarnation.

After her initial declaration, she spoke words which indicate the living richness of the Mystery of the Redemptive Incarnation for Saint Juan Diego and for all men. She asked that a chapel be built, in which, through her Divine Maternity, God the Son Incarnate might be known by all men. Her request contained a promise. Let us listen to her words: “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.”[2] Even as the Virgin Mary is the Mother of God the Son Incarnate, our Savior, she is also the Mother of Divine Grace, the one who brings Him to us and us to Him Who alone is our salvation. She is the one who draws us to the Church, His Mystical Body, to the fountains of His saving grace.

Today, we celebrate the Dedication of the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major on the Esquiline Hill in Rome, which has “the first place among Our Lady’s churches in the city, and indeed in the world, on the account of the solemn and miraculous circumstances of its origin.”[3] The Basilica was constructed and adorned over the centuries by the Roman Pontiffs to honor the Mystery of Faith manifested in the Divine Maternity of the Virgin Mary as it was solemnly declared and defined by the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431. Fittingly, the principal relic of the Basilica is of the manger in which the Mother of Jesus and Saint Joseph, His Virginal Father, placed the Divine Infant at His Birth in Bethlehem.[4]

Fittingly, too, the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe here was granted the Spiritual Bond of Affinity with the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major on May 26, 2011, in virtue of which the plenary indulgence granted – by the Apostolic Penitentiary – on certain days to pilgrims to the Papal Basilica are granted also to pilgrims to the Shrine Church here. Those days are today – the titular feast of the Papal Basilica – , the titular feast of the Shrine Church – December 12^th – , all the solemnities of the Virgin Mother of God, one day yearly freely chosen by the individual faithful, and days when a pilgrimage is made here as a group.[5] The Shrine Church has always had a physical bond of affinity with the Papal Basilica, for its altar of sacrifice and baldacchino are modelled after those of the Papal Basilica. The Spiritual Bond of Affinity with the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major underscores the identity and mission of the Shrine in the Church: a holy place of pilgrimage in which pilgrims encounter Our Lord through the Divine Maternity of His Virgin Mother.

Celebrating the Dedication of the Church of Our Lady of the Snow, the title recalling the miraculous snowfall by which Our Lord, through His Virgin Mother, indicated his desire that the great church be built to honor her as Mother, His Mother and Mother of the Church, His Mystical Body, – our Mother – , we are led to ponder the Mystery of Faith, the Mystery of the Redemptive Incarnation. In the Sacred Liturgy, especially during the Season of the Nativity of Our Lord, the Church celebrates the Mystery of Faith with the acclamation “O Wondrous Exchange – O Admirabile Commercium.” What does mother Church mean by the acclamation? Blessed Columba Marmion, in his book of spiritual conferences, Christ in His Mysteries, helps us to ponder the meaning. He writes:

You see, it is a human-divine exchange. The child born on Christmas Day is at the same time God, and the human nature that God takes to Himself from us is to serve as the instrument through which He communicates His divinity to us.”[6]

Acknowledging the truth of the Redemptive Incarnation, the truth that God the Son took our human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary, we acknowledge also the truth of Divine Grace won for our human nature through the Redemptive Incarnation, the truth that we are called to live in Christ, to be one in heart with His glorious-pierced Heart.

Blessed Columba Marmion, reflecting on a text of Saint Augustine, teaches us the union of our natural life to the supernatural life of God the Son Incarnate. He writes:

In us also, there will henceforth be two lives. The one, the natural life that we have by our birth according to the flesh, but which, in God’s sight, in consequence of original sin, is not only without merit but is – before baptism – stained fundamentally, making us enemies of God, worthy of deserved punishment. We are born “filii irae,” “children of wrath” [Eph 2, 3]. The other life – supernatural, infinitely above the rights and demands of our nature. It is this life that God communicates to us by His grace, the Incarnate Word having merited it for us.[7]

The Virgin Mother of God, Our Lady of the Snow, Our Lady of Guadalupe, preserved from all stain of original sin from the moment of her conception, manifests to us the reality of the “Wondrous Exchange” by which God has received from her our human nature, so that He might share with us His divine nature. Yes, we are beset by the effects of original sin, but, if we cooperate with divine grace which Our Lord unceasingly and immeasurably pours forth into our hearts from His glorious-pierced Heart, we can overcome sin and the tendency to sin, we can truly love God and our neighbor, thanks to the “Wondrous Exchange” of the Redemptive Incarnation.

Coming on pilgrimage here, we receive, through the intercession of Our Lady, the grace of conversion of life, the grace of conforming our natural life ever more completely to the supernatural life which is ours through Baptism. It is for this grace of daily conversion to Our Lord and for the grace of conversion to Our Lord of the many who do not yet know Him that we are praying fervently during the Nine-Month Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Consecrating ourselves to Our Lady of Guadalupe on her coming feast day, December 12^th, we will commit ourselves to the daily conversion of life to Christ and, at the same time, by that very same conversion, to the prayer and witness which draws to Christ those for whom He died on the Cross but who do not yet know Him and have not yet embraced His life.

Uniting our hearts now to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in His Eucharistic Sacrifice, let us ask for the grace to be, together with the Virgin Mother of God, always among the blessed, among those “who hear the Word of God and keep it.”[8] Thus may we, together with the Virgin Mother of God, be an instrument through which others come to know the Word of God, and, by the grace of the Redemptive Incarnation, to embrace God the Son Incarnate, and to follow Him in every thought and attitude, in every spoken word and habit of speaking, in every action and habit of action. Thus, may we, with the Virgin Mary, take “root in an honourable people,” have “in the portion of [our] God our inheritance,” and have our abode “in the full assembly of saints.”[9]

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke

[1] “Sabélo, 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. [NM]. English translation: “Appendix A - The Nican Mopohua,” in Carl Anderson and Msgr. Eduardo Chávez, Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love (New York: Doubleday, 2009), p. 173, no. 26. [NMEng].

[2] “Mucho quiero, mucho deseo, que aquí me levanten mi casita sagrada, en donde lo mostraré, lo ensalzaré al ponerlo de manifiesto, lo entregaré a las gentes en todo mi amor personal, a Él que es mi mirada compasiva, a Él que es mi auxilio, a Él que es mi salvación.” NM, p. 214, nn. 26-28. English translation: NMEng, p. 173, nos. 26-28.

[3] “… la primauté qu’elle prit dès l’abord, et conserva entre les églises de la Ville e du monde consacrées à Marie, lui fut acquise par les circonstances aussi solennelles que prodigieuses de ses origines.” Prosper Guéranger, L’Année liturgique, Le temps après la Pentecôte, Tome IV, 6^ème éd. (Paris: Librarie Religieuse H. Oudin, 1901), p. 331. English translation: Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Time after Pentecost, Book IV, tr. Benedictines of Stanbrook Abbey (Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, 2000), p. 265.

[4] Cf. Guéranger, pp. 332-333. English translation: Guéranger, p. 266.

[5] Cf. Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe (La Crosse, The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, 2024), pp. 170-171.

[6] “Vous le voyez ; c’est donc un échange humano-divin : l’enfant qui naît aujourd’hui est en même temps Dieu, et la nature humaine que Dieu nous emprunte doit servir d’instrument par lequel il nous communiquera sa divinité.” Columba Marmion, Le Christ dan Ses Mystères. Conférences Spirituelles (Montréal: Librairie Granger Frères Limitée, 1946), p. 127. [Marmion]. English translation: Blessed Columba Marmion, Christ in His Mysteries, tr. Alan Bancroft (Bethesda, MD: Zaccheus Press, 2008), p. 133. [MarmionEng].

[7] “En nous aussi, il y aura désormais deux vies. – L’une, naturelle, que nous tenons de notre naissance selon la chair, mais qui, aux yeux de Dieu, par suite de la faute originelle, est non seulement sans mérite, mais, avant le baptême, souillée dans son fond ; qui nous rend ennemis de Dieu, dignes de sa justice ; nous naissons filii irae [Eph. II,3]. – L’autre, surnaturelle, infiniment au-dessus des droits et des exigences de notre nature. C’est elle que Dieu nous communique par sa grâce, après que le Verbe incarné nous l’a méritée.” Marmion, p. 133. English translation: MarmionEng, p. 140.

[8] Lk 11, 28.

[9] Ecclus. 24, 16 [Douay-Rheims]; Sir 24, 12 [Revised Standard Version | Second Catholic Edition].