Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Today's Mass Readings

Today we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of both American continents. In 1531, Our Lady appeared to Juan Diego in Teypeyac, Mexico, and identified herself as Mary, the virgin mother of Jesus Christ. She made a request for a church to be built on that site, but the bishop requested a sign before he would do so. Juan Diego received roses (in December!) and a tilma (cloak) made of cactus cloth that depicts Our Lady, from Mary. The bishop did indeed build a church on that site, but moreover, Mary’s appearance to a Native American peasant in Mexico led to the conversions of thousands of others in the new world. I grew up in Colorado, where reverence for Our Lady of Guadalupe was commonplace. But here in the north, I see far fewer images and hear far fewer references to her. This is an important Marian feast for us in the Americas, though – and how great it is that we should be able to celebrate two Marian feasts in the same week, and especially during Advent!

The readings for today should definitely remind us of Monday’s feast of the Immaculate Conception, for the gospel reading is identical (Luke 1:26-38). (There is an alternate reading of the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth that could be read today as well, but I will focus on the Annunciation here.) We have here an opportunity to see how the first reading and the second so often dovetail to make a particular point – and that the same gospel could show us new and different meanings when read with different scriptures. On Monday, the first reading was of Adam and Eve sinning and being sent from the Garden of Eden. In that reading, Eve as the first woman, is compared to Mary. Eve may have been the original mother of all humanity, but Mary is the mother of the New Humanity in Christ.

Today, we have two possible first readings. The first possible reading from the prophet Zechariah, proclaims that God will dwell with his people. The Israelites hearing this originally would not have known necessarily how God would dwell with his people, but we do: he dwells with us not by being God as God, but by being God made human – or even more significantly, by being God made a small baby who cries, needs diaper changes, and has to eat often! We honor Mary as the caretaker of that vulnerable, small child who yet was Creator and Lord of all – an appropriate thing to remember at Advent.

The second possible reading is from Revelation, and is particularly interesting to compare with Monday’s readings. Monday’s first reading was a story of our beginnings from Genesis. This, however, is a story of the end of time, and like most of our readings from Revelation have been, it is strange and a bit frightening. Here we see a woman giving birth to a baby while dragons threaten to eat the baby. But the baby is born and taken immediately to heaven, while a voice proclaims that this is the Anointed one who brings salvation and power. The woman is taken to the desert and tended to by God, which highlights that the point of this story is the baby who is salvation, not the woman, through whom salvation comes.

Though the woman and the baby are never directly named, the references are unmistakable: these are Mary and Jesus. The fact that here is Jesus born at the end of time highlights that Christ is not just for those who lived 2,000 years ago, but he is Christ for us, and he is Christ for those who are still yet to be born.

This is good news for us who wait in Advent 2008 for the coming, again, of Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God for Mary who shows us the way to this salvation!

- Jana Bennett