Introduction
We consider Saint Juan Diego, heroic messenger of Our Lady of Guadalupe, as our model in showing forth the mercy of God in our homes, in our local communities, and in our world. At the same time, we call upon the help of his prayers, so that we may be able to carry out the Christian mission of merciful love with fidelity and generosity, as the Virgin of Guadalupe instructs us.
The best way to know Saint Juan Diego is to study the account of the apparitions of the Mother of God to him. The Nican Mopohua, the account of the apparitions written by Antonio Valeriano, a good friend of the Saint and a well-respected Native American scholar of the time, is the fruit of their many conversations about the apparitions. Saint Juan Diego dedicated the 17 years of his life after the apparitions to describing Our Lady and her message to pilgrims of her “sacred little house,” in which they could venerate her miraculous image on his tilma or mantle. His good and learned friend, Antonio Valeriano, never tired of hearing again from Saint Juan Diego the account of the visits of Our Lady to Tepeyac Hill from December 9th to 12th of 1531. He became a privileged messenger of Our Lady by employing his literary skills to hand on her message of Divine Love Incarnate as she communicated it to Saint Juan Diego.
In the Nican Mopohua, what is immediately evident is the intimacy of Saint Juan Diego’s relationship with the Mother of God and, through her, with the Lord. Our Lady speaks to him in the most endearing terms, in the language of a mother for her child, and he responds, always with the greatest respect, in an equally affectionate manner. It is clear that his relationship with God, through the Virgin Mother, is the center of his life. In fact, when the Mother of God called upon him to be her trusted messenger to the Bishop and her trusted herald for pilgrims, he put all other concerns aside, until he had first accomplished what she was asking of him. His words to her, in their simple yet beautiful eloquence, inspire us:
My Lady, my Queen, my Little Girl, let me not anguish you or grieve your face, your heart; truly with gladness I will go to carry out your venerable breath, your venerable word; I absolutely will not fail to doit, nor does the road trouble me. I will go now, to carry out your will (Nican Mopohua, nos. 63-64).
As we persevere in carrying out Our Lady’s intention during this Nine-Month Novena and Consecration, let us pray that God, through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, will drive away from us, from the Church, and from the world all the influence of the Evil One. Satan makes bold to sow his lies, the seeds of confusion and destruction, especially within the Church. Let us pray, through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, that Christ Who alone is King of Heaven and of Earth may reign in our hearts, may reign throughout the world.
Let our homes be, first and foremost, a place in which the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Christ the King, symbolizes his rule over the hearts of all and inspires a life always more faithful to His grace at work within us for the salvation of the world. Let our homes be a place in which the image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, draws every member of the household to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Divine Heart full of truth and love.
