Alive in Christ: Pilgrims of Hope under the care of the Mother of Hope

Introduction: Jubilee of the Redemptive Incarnation

 Every twenty-five years, the Church observes a jubilee or anniversary of the Redemptive Incarnation of God the Son in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. The Jubilee Year 2025 marks the 2025^th Anniversary of the Incarnation which is the beginning of the great and incomparable work of the salvation of man and of the world by the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of God the Son Who took our human nature, took a human heart, in the womb, under the Immaculate Heart, of the Ever Virgin Mary.

The celebration of a Jubilee Year in the Church, takes its inspiration from the Divine Law given in the Book of Leviticus.[1] Recalling the Exodus by which God liberated His children from slavery in Egypt, the Year of Jubilee, mandated by God in the Book of Leviticus, was a time when the poor and enslaved were freed, received a new beginning, in imitation of God’s great work of the Exodus. It was also an anticipation of the fulfillment of the promise of eternal salvation, first made by God in his words to the serpent who had beguiled Adam and Eve to rebel against God, to attempt to take the place of God: “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 heal.”[2]

The promise is renewed, with particular solemnity and efficacy each jubilee year, as Our Lord proclaimed through the Prophet Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion – to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.… For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all nations.[3]

The Jubilee Year is a time to return to the Lord, a time of conversion of heart to restore the order with which God created the world and, above all, each human heart. The return to the Lord, the conversion of heart, is signified, above all, by the devotion of pilgrimage to a holy place in which to encounter the Lord. Thus, during the Holy Year, Christians make pilgrimage to the holy places of the Redemptive Incarnation and, in a particular way, to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul, to seek reconciliation with Our Lord, especially through the Sacraments of Penance and of the Holy Eucharist.

 

Salvation in God the Son Incarnate, Now and on the Last Day

            You will have recognized the words of the Prophet Isaiah as the words which Our Lord Jesus used to begin His Public Ministry. Having suffered the temptations of the devil during the forty days he spent in the desert to prepare for His Public Ministry, Our Lord “returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee.”[4] He went into the synagogue of Nazareth, “where he had been brought up,”[5] and proclaimed the first two verses of the text of the Prophet Isaiah, which I have just read to you. After proclaiming these verses, He declared to those assembled in the synagogue: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”[6] In other words, Our Lord identified Himself as the long-awaited Anointed of the Lord, the Messiah, sent by God the Father to accomplish the salvation promised to our First Parents, the promise which God renewed through the Prophecy of Isaiah. In fact, the words and deeds of Our Lord Jesus during His Public Ministry, which reached their fullness in His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension manifested the fulfillment of God’s promise of salvation.

The salvation from sin and eternal death, won for us by God the Son Incarnate through His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension will reach its consummation on the Last Day when Christ, returning in glory to the Earth, will restore all things to God the Father. Saint Paul describes the consummation of the Redemptive Incarnation with these words:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. “For God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection under him,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one.[7]

What God the Father has accomplished in Christ, “the first fruits,” in virtue of the Incarnation, is to be accomplished in all who have come to life in Christ through Baptism, living members of His Mystical Body,[8] living branches in Christ the Vine.[9] Alive in Christ in the Church, we daily share in Christ’s victory over sin and death, and we will share the consummation of His victory when He returns in glory on the Last Day.

The consummation of the great work of salvation will take place on the Last Day, when our glorious Risen Lord returns in His glory to the earth. Saint Paul describes the Last Day in the First Letter to the Thessalonians:

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord.[10]

The sound of the trumpet which announces the Jubilee Year is a foreshadowing of the trumpet which will announce the consummation of the victory of Our Lord over sin and everlasting death on the Last Day. The conversion and restoration which we are to seek every day of our lives by the grace of Christ, by the outpouring of the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit from His glorious-pierced Heart into our hearts, and which we seek, in an extraordinary way, during the Jubilee Year will be perfectly accomplished on the Last Day.

 

Jubilee Year of the Theological Virtue of Hope

Pope Francis who proclaimed the 2025 Holy Year with the words of Saint Paul, “hopes does not disappoint,”[11] invited us to be “Pilgrims of Hope.” I propose today a little catechesis on the theological and infused virtue of hope as an inspiration for us on pilgrimage during the 2025 Holy Year.

Through the Sacrament of Baptism, which has its completion in the Sacrament of Confirmation, Christ has poured into our souls, our hearts, from His glorious-pierced Heart the sevenfold gift of the Holy Spirit, sanctifying grace, and, at the same time, has infused into our hearts the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity by which we respond to divine grace, to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, by leading a holy life, a life of faithful, generous, and pure communion with Christ and of witness to Him in the world. The Christian life is indeed a participation in the divine life, in the life of the Three Persons in One God.

Why are the virtues called theological? The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us:

The human virtues are rooted in the theological virtues, which adapt man’s faculties for participation in the divine nature: for the theological virtues relate directly to God. They dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity. They have the One and Triune God for their origin, motive, and object.[12]

In giving us the gift of His life, of divine life, God also gives us the virtues by which to live in Him. Father Francis Spirago in his great work, The Catechism Explained, which has been newly edited by Father Richard F. Clarke, S.J., describes the way in which the theological virtues manifest themselves in us:

The three theological virtues are manifested in the following manner:

The effect produced by the virtue of Faith is to make us believe in the existence of God and in His divine perfections.

The effect of the virtue of Hope is to make us look for eternal salvation from God, as well as the means that are necessary for its attainment.

The virtue of Charity causes us to find satisfaction in God, and to seek to please Him by keeping His commandments.[13]

Each day, as we pray the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity, we recognize the reality of the theological virtues in our hearts and ask that they may be ever more manifest in our daily living. For instance, in the Act of Hope, we pray: “O My God, relying on Thy almighty power and infinite mercy and promises, I hope to obtain pardon of my sins, the help of Thy grace, and life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer.”[14]

 

The Infusion of the Theological Virtues into Souls

The theological virtues are infused by God into our souls. They are the powers to live in communion with God. The great German theologian Ludwig Ott, in his masterwork Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, instructs us:

The Council of Trent teaches: “In the very act of justification, together with the remission of sins, man receives through Jesus Christ, into whom he is inserted, the gifts of faith, hope and charity (DH 1530). The virtues named are conferred on the soul as a habit or disposition, not as an act. The expression “infuse” (infundere) designates the communication of a habit.[15]

The sanctifying grace given at Baptism and Confirmation, and throughout the Christian life enables the Christian to exercise these powers or habits. If the sanctifying grace given in Baptism and Confirmation is lost through mortal sin, it can be restored through the Sacrament of Penance. Sanctifying grace is nourished and increased within our souls by the Heavenly Bread which the Holy Eucharist.

The theological virtues remain like seeds in the soul of the baptized, which, by the cooperation with divine grace, germinate and flower in a good and holy life. The Christian education received in the home and in schools should be directed principally to helping the child of God grow in faith, hope, and charity. The symbols of the theological virtues help us to understand how God infuses them into our souls in order to bring us to Him both in this life and in the life to come. Father Spirago writes about the symbols:

These three virtues are symbolized by a flame; faith is signified by the light it emits, hope by its upward tendency, and charity by the heat it radiates. A tree is also an emblem of these virtues: faith is its root, hope its stem, charity its fruit. Faith lays the foundation of the temple of God, hope raises the walls, and charity crowns the structure. The cross is a symbol of faith, the anchor of hope, while charity is denoted by a burning heart. The greatest of these virtues is charity (1 Cor. 13:13). Without charity, faith and hope are valueless, for God only grants eternal felicity to those that love Him.[16]

The symbols reflect the real organic unity of the three theological virtues because they reflect the essential aspects of the participation in the divine life and of its fruit: eternal life.

 

The Unity of the Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity

The Council of Trent, in its teaching on the justification of sinners, makes clear the unity of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity:

For although no one can be just unless the merits of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ are imparted to him, still this communication takes place in the justification of the sinner, when by the merit of the same most holy Passion, “God’s love is poured through the Holy Spirit into the hearts” [Rom 5:5] of those who are being justified and inheres in them [can. 11]. Hence, in the very act of justification, together with the remission of sins, man receives through Jesus Christ, into whom he is inserted, the gifts of faith, hope, and charity, all infused at the same time.

For faith without hope and charity neither unites a man perfectly with Christ nor makes him a living member of his body. Therefore it is rightly said that faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead and unprofitable [cf. Jas 2:17, 20; can. 19] and that “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love” [Gal 5:6, cf. 6:15].

This is the faith that, in keeping with apostolic tradition, the catechumens ask of the Church before the reception of baptism when they ask for “the faith that gives eternal life”, a life that faith without hope and charity cannot give. Hence they immediately hear Christ’s words: “If you would enter eternal life, keep the commandments” [Mt 19:17, cann. 1-20]. Accordingly, while they receive the true Christian justice, as soon as they have been reborn, they are commanded to keep it resplendent and spotless, like their “best robe” [Lk 15:22] given to them through Jesus Christ in place of the one Adam lost for himself and for us by his disobedience, so that they may wear it before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ and have eternal life.[17]

It is only by the exercise of all three of the theological virtues that one truly exercises each of them.

 

The Nature of the Theological Virtue of Hope

Let us now reflect on the catechesis regarding the theological virtue of hope. First, what is the nature of Christian hope? “Christian hope is the confident expectation of all those things which Christ promised us with regard to the fulfillment of God’s will.”[18] If we follow Him, doing the Father’s will in all things, Christ has promised us eternal happiness and the means by which to attain it: “God’s grace, temporal goods for the sustaining of life, forgiveness of sins, help in our necessities, and the answering of our prayers.”[19] The Lord’s Prayer asks Our Lord for all these goods pertaining to our eternal salvation.[20]

God may seem not to answer our prayers for what is necessary in our lives, but hope trusts in the words of Christ: “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.”[21]

Theological faith is clearly the foundation of theological hope and theological charity. “Christian hope is based on faith, for we hope for the fulfilment of God’s promises because we believe that God is infinitely true, infinitely powerful, and infinitely good, and that Christ has merited all for us.”[22]

What is required of the sinner to exercise theological hope. Father Spirago explains:

He only who carries out God’s will can hope for the good things promised by Christ. The sinner can hope in God only when he is repentant and engaged in the conversion of his life.[23]

Father Spirago quotes Saint Bernard of Clairveaux who declared: “Hope without virtue is presumption.”[24] The just man is called to engage himself totally to attain all that for which he hopes from God. Father Spirago quotes Saint Francis de Sales: “To expect help and to do nothing is to tempt God.”[25]

“A wholesome fear of falling into sin must always accompany Christian hope.”[26] Saint Paul exhorts us:

Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.[27]

While the Christian has hope, knowing that God will give him help in time of temptation, hope also teaches him to be attentive to anything which may lead him away from Christ.

Clearly, hope is necessary for our eternal salvation. Father Spirago explains: “A man who has no hope will not do good works, nor avoid sin; while he who has hope is secure of his salvation, just as a man is certain of a plant when he has the seed; ‘for we are saved by hope’ (Rom. 8:24).”[28]

Finally, we can only attain Christian hope by the help of sanctifying grace. Father Spirago explains:

It is the Spirit of God which awakens in us a longing for heavenly things, and fills us with confidence in God. As sanctifying grace increases, this power of hoping increases; hence the saints hoped most at the approach of death. Hope, like a river, becomes wider as it approaches the sea.[29]

I witnessed the work of sanctifying grace increasing Christian hope in the soul of a dear priest friend who suffered a prolonged and most painful agony and death as a result of multiple myeloma. I was blessed to assist him regularly in the last years of his life, both praying for him and visiting him regularly. Never once did he complain about his suffering. Never once did he ask why God was permitting him to suffer so greatly. Whenever the subject of his fatal illness came up, he would always conclude the conversation with a smile and the words: “We are in the hands of God.” Christian hope makes it possible for us to recognize and understand, as Saint Paul writes, “that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.”[30]

Our hope is in God, not in ourselves nor in any other man or earthly reality. We pray in Psalm 146:

Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul! I will praise the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have being. Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no help. When his breath departs he returns to his earth; on that very day his plans perish. Happy is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them; who keeps faith for ever; who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry.[31]

The heroic example of hope is found in the three young men – Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – whom King Nebuchadnezzar ordered to be thrown into a fiery furnace because of their refusal to commit acts of idolatry. The young men trusted in God and walked in the midst of the flames, unharmed, “singing hymns to God and blessing the Lord.”[32]

 

Sins against the Theological Virtue of Hope

Despair is a deadly sin against hope, the unforgivable sin, for it denies God’s Being, His Goodness. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us:

By despair, man ceases to hope for his personal salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the forgiveness of his sins. Despair is contrary to God’s goodness, to his justice – for the Lord is faithful to his promises – and to his mercy.[33]

The Apostle Judas is the tragic example of the sin of despair which ended in his suicide. On the other hand, Dismas, the Good Thief crucified with Our Lord, trusted in God’s mercy, pleading with Our Lord to remember him, and was thus saved.

Another serious sin against hope is presumption whereby the sinner continues sinning, thinking that God will never judge him. Father Spirago explains:

Confidence in God and fear of God must ever be equally present in us. It is wrong that there should be only fear of God without trust in Him, for this is despair. It is also wrong that there should be no fear at all; if a man thinks his salvation already secure he sins by presumption. … No man may safely say to himself, “I can always do penance for this sin,” or, “I will reform before my death.”[34]

We can count upon God’s mercy but not without our conversion. Grace is always demanding, for it conforms our hearts to the Heart of God, the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Lastly, hope does not justify thoughtless and rash behavior. When the devil tempted Our Lord in the desert to act rashly, to throw Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple while presuming upon the intervention of the Father to save Him, Our Lord simply responded: “It is said, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God’.”[35] The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us:

The challenge contained in such tempting of God wounds the respect and trust we owe our Creator and Lord. It always harbors doubt about his love, his providence, and his power.[36]

Tempting God is, in fact, among the principal sins of a lack of religion, of the lack of a proper relationship with God.

 

The Blessed Virgin Mary: Mother of Hope

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the most powerful model of hope and the most powerful intercessor to exercise more fully the infused virtue of hope. At the Visitation, when Saint Elizabeth heard the voice of her cousin Mary, she, “filled with the Holy Spirit,”[37] declared to Mary:

Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.[38]

At the moment of the Incarnation, the Blessed Virgin Mary, even though she did not fully understand how what God was asking of her could be accomplished, responded to the Archangel Gabriel, the messenger of the Lord: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”[39] From that moment, she, as the account of the Finding of Our Lord in the Temple tells us, “kept all these things in her heart.”[40] She treasured the Mystery of the Redemptive Incarnation, the Mystery of Faith, in her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, perfectly united to the Most Sacred Heart of her Divine Son. When He had died, and His Side was pierced by the spear of the Roman soldier, so also was her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart mystically pierced.

In her apparitions at Tepeyac Hill in modern-day Mexico City, the Virgin Mother of God, Our Lady of Guadalupe, was above all the Mother of Hope for the people for whom there seemed to be no hope against the horrible evil of massive human sacrifice and of inter-racial hatred, violence, and murder. She came as the mother of the people of Saint Juan Diego but, as she made clear from her first apparition, she came as “the compassionate mother … of all various lineages of men.”[41] She asked that a chapel be built in which she could show to all people suffering in any way the mercy of God. Declaring herself to be the Heavenly Mother of all peoples, she made clear that the purpose of the chapel was to increase the exercise of hope in those suffering temptations, trials, and tribulations. Regarding the chapel, she declared: “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.”[42]

Our Lady of Guadalupe’s relationship with Saint Juan Diego was the model of her maternity of hope, for, Saint Juan Diego, even though he wanted only to do the will of God and always obeyed his Heavenly Mother, experienced strong doubts regarding his ability to carry out the mission which she entrusted to Him. When Saint Juan Diego judged that Our Lady should choose a more impressive messenger, Our Lady assured him that he was the chosen messenger and that by his intercession with the Bishop her wish would be accomplished.[43] Likewise, when the fatal illness of his uncle Juan Bernardino seemed to make it impossible for him to do what Our Lady was asking at the moment, she assured him, she encouraged him to practice the virtue of hope infused into his soul at his baptism:

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?

Let nothing else worry you, disturb you; don’t grieve over your uncle’s illness, because he will not die of it for now, you may be certain that he is already healed.[44]

At her word, Saint Juan Diego proceeded to carry out her will, trusting that Our Lord would provide, as indeed He did in a most wonderful way.

Those who come on pilgrimage here beckoned by Our Lady of Guadalupe receive, in a particular way, the grace to exercise more fully in their lives the theological virtue of hope, infused into their souls by God at their baptism. The Mother of Hope receives pilgrims of hope to take them to her Divine Son Who is the salvation of those who put their trust in Him and in His promises.

Today, she has beckoned us to come before the Real Presence – the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity – of her Divine Son, Our Eucharistic Lord, Who alone is our salvation. Under her care, before the Real Presence of Our Lord, our practice of the virtue of hope is perfected and strengthened.

Coming on pilgrimage here, the prayer of pilgrims, no matter what trial they may be facing, becomes filled with hope. Returning to the ordinary circumstances of their daily lives, their prayer becomes more what all prayer is by its very nature. As a learned commentator on the theological virtue of hope and the obligation to practice the virtue of hope wrote: “There is a perfect act of theological hope contained at least implicitly in all prayer by which we ask God with confidence, for us and in our interest, for eternal life and the help of grace to arrive there.”[45]

 

Conclusion

            It is my hope that today’s reflection will inspire you, under the guidance of the Virgin Mother of God, Our Lady of Guadalupe, to exercise ever more faithfully, generously, and purely the theological virtue of hope. It is my hope that it will inspire you to respond to the special grace of the present Jubilee Year of the Redemptive Incarnation. It is a grace, in particular, for the ever fuller practice of theological hope in your everyday lives.

            Thank you for your attention. May God bless you, your families, and your homes. May Our Lady of Guadalupe keep you always securely within the fold of her mantle.

Raymond Leo Cardinal BURKE

 

---

[1] Cf. Lev 25, 8-55.

[2] Gen 3, 15.

[3] Is 61, 1-4. 11.

[4] Lk 4, 14.

[5] Lk 4, 16.

[6] Lk 4, 21.

[7] 1 Cor 15, 20-28.

[8] Cf. 1 Cor 12, 12. 27; Eph 4, 12; Col 1, 24.

[9] Cf. Jn 15, 1-17.

[10] 1 Thes 4, 16-17. Cf. 2 Thes 2, 1-2.

[11] Rom 5, 5.

[12] Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1813. [Hereafter: CCC].

[13] Francis Spirago, The Catechism Explained: Newly Annotated with Corresponding References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ed. Richard F. Clarke (Gastonia, NC: TAN Books, 2022), p. 513. [Hereafter: Spirago].

[14] “The Act of Hope,” Catholic Prayers Compiled from Traditional Sources (Charlotte, NC: TAN Books, 2016), pp. 3-4.

[15] English translation: Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, tr. Patrick Lynch, ed. James Canon Bastible, rev. Robert Fastiggi (Baronius Press, 2022), p. 279.

[16] Spirago, p. 513.

[17] Heinrich Denzinger, Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals, ed. Peter Hünermann for original bilingual edition, and Robert Fastiggi and Anne Englund Nash for the English edition, 43^rd ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), pp. 377-378, nos. 1530-1531.

[18] Spirago, p. 288.

[19] Spirago, p. 288.

[20] Cf. Spirago, pp. 289-290.

[21] Jn 14, 13-14.

[22] Spirago, p. 290.

[23] Spirago, p. 290.

[24] Spirago, p. 290.

[25] Spirago, p. 291.

[26] Spirago, p. 291.

[27] 1 Cor 10, 12-13.

[28] Spirago, p. 292.

[29] Spirago, p. 292.

[30] Rom 8, 28.

[31] Ps 146 [145], 1-7.

[32] Dan 3, 24.

[33] CCC, no. 2091.

[34] Spirago, p. 296.

[35] Lk 4, 12. Cf. Mt 4, 7.

[36] CCC, no. 2119.

[37] Lk 1, 41.

[38] Lk 1, 42-45.

[39] Lk 1, 38.

[40] Lk 2, 51.

[41] “… madre compasiva … de todos las demás variadas estirpes de hombres.” “Apéndice A, El Nican Mopohua,” Carl A. Anderson y Eduardo Chávez, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. Madre de la civilización del amor, tr. Gerardo Hernández Clark (México DF: Random House Mondadori, 2010), p. 214, nn. 29 and 31. [NM]. English translation: Carl A. Anderson and Eduardo Chávez, Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love (New York: Doubleday, 2009), p. 174, nos. 29 and 31. [NMEng].

[42] “Porque ahí [mi casita sagrada], en verdad, eschucharé su llanto, su tristeza, para remediar, para curar todas sus diferentes penas, sus miserias, sus dolores.” NM, p. 214, n. 32. English translation: NMEng, p. 174, n. 32.

[43] Cf. NM, p. 216, nn. 57-59. English translation: NMEng, pp. 175-176, nos. 57-59.

[44] “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 estas en el hueco de mi manto, en el cruce de mis brazos? ¿Acaso tienes necesidad de alguna otra cosa?

Que ninguna otra cosa te aflija, que no te inquiete; que no te acongoje la enfermedad de tu tío, porque de ella no morirá por ahora, ten por cierto que ya sanó.” NM, p. 220, nn. 118-120. English translation: NMEng, p. 179, nos. 118-120.

[45] “Il y a un acte parfait d’espérance théologale contenu au moins implicitement dans toute prière par laquelle nous demandons à Dieu avec confiance, pour nous e dans notre intérêt, la vie éternelle e le secours de la grâce pour y arriver.” S. Harent, “Esperance,” Dictionnarie de Théologie Catholique, Tome Cinquième, Première Partie, ed. A. Vacant, E. Mangenot, and É. Amann (Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1939), col. 675.