Solemnity of Our Lady of Guadalupe 2024
on Dec 12, 2024
Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe
La Crosse, Wisconsin
December 12, 2024
Watch the Full Holy Mass!
Zech 2, 14-17
Jdt 13, 18bcde. 19
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 great struggle between the “woman clothed with the sun”[1] who “was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth”[2] and the “huge red dragon”[3] who “stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth,”[4] in the apocalyptic vision of Saint John Apostle and Evangelist has continued in every era of the life of the Church. It was raging in 1531, when God the Father sent the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus, His Incarnate Son, on Tepeyac Hill, in present-day Mexico City, to draw men once again to Jesus, her Divine Child, the “one who is to rule all the nations,”[5] and of whose “kingdom there will be no end.”[6] The Virgin Mother of God, Our Lady of Guadalupe, as she first did at the Wedding Feast at Cana, drew men to Christ Who alone saves men from Satan, “a murderer from the beginning,” who “has nothing to do with the truth,” “a liar and the father of lies.”[7] The Virgin Mother of God takes men to Christ with the maternal instruction: “Do whatever he tells you.”[8]
The struggle rages in our time to a degree which severely tests our faith. Conscious of the gravity of the situation of the Church and the world, we rightly ask: “What are we to do?”
We are to go to Jesus through His Mother whom He gave to us as our Mother as He was offering His life on Calvary, on the Cross, for our eternal salvation.[9] In the face of the fierce attacks of Satan and his cohorts in our time, the Mother of God, the Virgin of Guadalupe, takes us to her Divine Son Who has won the victory over sin and death in His Body by His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension. He never ceases to win the same victory in our bodies by the outpouring of the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit from His glorious-pierced Heart into our hearts.
The prophetic word of Zechariah has been perfectly fulfilled: “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for behold, I come and I will dwell in the midst of you, says the LORD.”[10] God the Son has united our human nature to His divine nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary, “full of grace,”[11] and married to Saint Joseph. At the announcement of the Archangel Gabriel, God the Son was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. God the Son came to dwell with us for the salvation of the nations. He is King of the Universe who rules the hearts of men from His glorious-pierced Heart.
For nine months now, we have been daily imploring the Virgin Mother of God, Our Lady of Guadalupe, to take us to her Divine Son Who alone is “the way, and the truth, and the life.”[12] Through her intercession, we have been asking for the grace of the daily conversion of our lives to Him, of the daily giving of our hearts completely into His Most Sacred Heart, and for the conversion of the millions who do not yet know Him and of the many who have known Him and then have abandoned His company. We have been pleading, through Our Lady of Guadalupe, that the victory of Christ over sin and death in our human nature may be realized in each of our lives and in the lives of all our brothers and sisters.
Having completed the nine-month Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, today we make the Act of Consecration to her, giving our hearts completely, one with her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, into the glorious-pierced Heart of Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary. We trust the words of our heavenly Mother to Saint Juan Diego, when he seemingly could not carry out her mission because of the fatal illness of his uncle Juan Bernardino:
Listen, put it into your heart, my youngest son, that what frightened you, what afflicted you is nothing; do not let it disturb your face, your heart; do not fear this sickness or any other sickness, nor any sharp or hurtful thing. Am I not here, I who have the honor to be your mother? Are you not in my shadow and under my protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need anything more? [13]
Today, we consecrate ourselves as messengers of Our Lady, according to the example of Saint Juan Diego, turning our lives over every day anew to Our Lord and, with her, drawing to Our Lord the many who do not yet know Him and the many who have known Him but are now far away from Him. Consecrating ourselves to Our Lady of Guadalupe, we also confide to her prayers our families and our nation, asking that Christ the King may rule over all hearts from His Most Sacred Heart.
The Act of Consecration we make today is a sacramental of the Church, disposing us to receive and to cooperate with the actual grace to live the Consecration to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary every day until our earthly pilgrimage reaches its destination: eternal life with God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – in the company of Our Lady, the angels and all the saints.[14] Today, you will receive the Daily Prayer of Those Consecrated to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Let us offer each day this prayer so that our consecration remain true, so that we may cooperate with the grace of Christ Who wins in our human nature the victory of life and love in the struggle against Satan and all evil spirits. Praying this prayer daily, let us confide to the Heart of Jesus, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, our families and our homeland.
Having made the Act of Consecration to Our Lady of Guadalupe after the Profession of Faith, let us give our hearts completely to Our Lord in His Eucharistic Sacrifice. May the holiness of our union of heart with His Most Sacred Heart through the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar shine forth in our every thought and word and action. So may Christ win in us the victory over sin and death, and so may we be “fellow workers [with Christ] in the truth,”[15] as He wins the same victory in the lives of our brothers and sisters.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE
[1] Rev 12, 1.
[2] Rev 12, 2.
[3] Rev 12, 3.
[4] Rev 12, 4.
[5] Rev 12, 5.
[6] Lk 1, 33.
[7] Jn 8, 44.
[8] Jn 2, 5.
[9] Cf. Jn 19, 26-27.
[10] Zech 2, 10.
[11] Lk 1, 28.
[12] Jn 14, 6.
[13] “Escucha, ponlo en tu corazón, Hijo mío el menor, que no es nada lo que te espantó, lo que te afligió; que no se perturbe tu rostro, tu corazón; no temas esta enfermedad ni ninguna otra enfermedad, ni cosa punzante y aflictiva. ¿No estoy yo aquí, que tengo el honor de ser tu madre? ¿No estás bajo mi sombra y resguardo? ¿No soy yo la fuente de tu alegría? ¿No estás en el hueco de mi manto, en el cruce de mis brazos? ¿Acaso tienes necesidad de alguna otra cosa?” “Apéndice A: El Nican Mopohua,” tr. Instituto Superior de Estudios Guadalupanos, in Carl A. Anderson y 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. 220, nn. 118-119. English translation: “Appendix A: The Nican Mopohua,” in Carl A. Anderson and Eduardo Chávez, Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love (New York: Doubleday, 2009), p. 179, nos. 118-119.
[14] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 1667 and 1670.
[15] 3 Jn 8.