Introduction
Our Lady of Guadalupe’s direction in 1531 was to build a “sacred little house,” a chapel, a church,” in order to draw people into a profoundly personal encounter with her Divine Son, Jesus Christ, in the Sacraments of Penance and Holy Eucharist. This is because she understands that the Church exists to call the culture to conversion and to transform it. She knows, too, that in the struggle to row the boat of the Church against the troubled waters of the confusion and error which surround us, there is the temptation to give up and to let the boat move with the times, with the result that the same confusion and error enters into the very life of the Church.
Yet, by giving us her image on the Tilma, so that people might be drawn to see her, so that she can draw them to her Divine Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lady shows that she also fully comprehends that, if we strive every day to give our lives completely to Christ, our great High Priest, Who has made us His brothers and sisters, then we can be confident that the turbulent waters which we are unable to navigate on our own become, with Christ, indeed navigable.
The purification and strength for our daily conversion of life and for meeting the challenge of teaching the truth of the faith and ministering the saving mysteries come solely from the Holy Eucharist, from our union with Christ in His Eucharistic Sacrifice and our communion with Him in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.
Contemplating her maternal gaze from the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we see the face of Christ and hear His invitation to unite our hearts to His Sacred Heart, and to unite our lives to His, and, with Mary, give our fiat—“be it done to me according to thy word” (Lc 1, 38)—to our mission, which is daily conversion of life to Jesus Christ, so that, by exercising His pastoral charity, the world might be transformed into a civilization of love.
I hope you will also watch the video reflection for this month and then please join me in praying the Official Novena Prayer. If you do not have an Official Novena Prayer Card, one can be ordered or downloaded at the links below.
