WHY WE WILL CELEBRATE OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE SUNDAY

Our Lady of Guadalupe changed my life. That’s because ever since I began to really get to know her message, I have felt the freedom to be myself, no longer living with an inferiority complex, nor a feeling of insecurity.

That’s what Our Lady of Guadalupe does for her followers: She liberates us from within, giving us the confidence to go forth to face new worlds, knowing she will be tenderly at our side, encouraging us to move forward.

The people of Mexico will celebrate her once more on Sunday in their country and everywhere else they find themselves, including the United States. They will descend on Catholic churches for Mass, which often start at midnight, often accompanied by mariachis.

I’m a native of Mexico, and as a young woman in 1979, I found myself at a crossroads. I had already decided to dedicate myself to working in the faith but didn’t know what path to take. Like the faithful have done for centuries, I traveled to the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe at the Basilica in Mexico City to pray for her guidance.

I met a man there who told me something I will never forget:

“Love ‘La Morenita,’ with all of your heart, but do it intelligently.”

And from that moment on I began to educate myself about her. How she had appeared before an Indigenous man, Juan Diego, in 1531, identifying herself as the Virgin Mary, the mother of the only true God. And how she had selected him for his simplicity and humbleness to witness the miracles revealing her presence — and a mother’s unwavering love for the people of Mexico and the Americas.

She appeared a decade after the Spanish had conquered the Aztec empire. It was a dark time for the native population, their gods destroyed and their culture trampled. The Spanish brought Christianity, introducing a new faith. The Virgin of Guadalupe gave that faith an Indigenous face and treated the native population with dignity, tenderly giving them a sense of purpose to keep moving forward.

In the Virgin of Guadalupe, I saw a way forward for me, how I could serve vulnerable communities, moving them closer to God, confident in who I was and where I was heading. I became a Guadalupana missionary.

I have worked 39 years as a religious woman in the United States, serving in the congregation of Sisters for Christian Community. I have served communities in Florida, where I first worked, and in the San Diego and Imperial Valley region, where I have served Latino families for 31 years.

In that time, I have seen the growth of the Latino population, and changes in migration patterns and in society.

We’re now living in a painful, fractured world that’s not that different from the era of the Spanish conquest.

There is so much darkness in people’s interiors. Faith is attacked, though for the most part not as blatantly or violently as at some points in history. In college, on social media and in popular culture, there’s talk that God does not exist, that it’s a fairy tale.

I have observed how many immigrant parents seem to leave behind their traditions and faith when they move to this country. What happens?

New generations grow up untethered to their families’ values and their parents’ and grandparents’ faith. They grow up in fear, insecure about their present and future.

The pandemic has only heightened these feelings.

The only one that offers us a response is Our Lady of Guadalupe.

She’s the only one who can sow hope and encourage us to keep moving forward to a new life, as she did nearly 500 years ago to a people who had lost the center of their life, their faith.

She reminds us that we should be treated with dignity, regardless of our station in life, that we have an important role to play.

She calls on us to have confidence in ourselves, in our faith and in our God.

The Spanish brought Christianity, introducing a new faith. The Virgin of Guadalupe gave that faith an Indigenous face and treated the native population with dignity, giving them a sense of purpose.