Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrates the miraculous appearance of Mary to a poor Indian near Mexico City some 470 years ago. On this Marian feast, I find myself reflecting on the Mother of God by thinking about my mom, my own motherhood, and the motherhood of all the many other women in my life (including the many ways to be mothers: biological, adoptive, foster, and spiritual).
“Mama!” “Mom?” “Moooom…. (complete with eye roll).” Each of these statements has been made to me by one or more of my children, and each represents some aspect of motherhood. Each is represented in today’s scriptures, too.
“Mama!” is the cry of my 18-month old, as a doctor removes staples from stitches in her head, and I hold on to her hand. It is also the cry to be comforted that I see reflected in today’s first reading (Zechariah 2:14-17). In the verses just before this one, we read that Zechariah’s audience is in exile in Babylon; but now God is coming to dwell with the people. God will be there to restore them to their homeland. And how will God bring this about? Of course, through Mary, whom we read about in Luke 1:26-38. Mama brings comfort, the miracle of God himself coming to dwell with us. She is most especially present to St. Juan Diego, one of the poorest of the poor, and continues to be present to the 10 million people who visit the basilica on the site where Juan Diego received his vision.
“Mom?” is the question mothers (and fathers, too) get asked at LEAST once daily, if not, oh, 50 gajillion times a day. It is always the precursor to the stuff our family needs to get through the day: where is my coat? Can you sign a form? Do you know where my book is? The question “Mom?” is also part of Mary’s own witness to us: God will be with us, but not in some kind of extraordinary unimaginable way. God is with us in our daily lives, and we know this because God comes to us through a young virgin in her own daily life. God is present to us when and where we are, and the Mother of God does likewise: she comes to us when and where we are. In Juan Diego’s case, she came as a native woman, with native symbolism.
“Mooom…” is the specialty question of the tween, exasperated at the questions I ask her teachers at school events, because she believes she already knows the answers. But where she might know something about 5th grade, I am the newcomer, learning something new about the world. But so is Mary, too, open to the wide new world: “How can this be?” she asks the angel. In asking that question, she receives a new answer from God, that God will be with us in an entirely new world. Because of Mary’s “yes,” we have the new possibility of God being present in our world.
So this feast presents yet one more opportunity for us to celebrate how amazing it is that God is with us in our world. It also gives us a chance to learn from our Mother, and to be spiritual and physical mothers to all. We, too, can comfort others, point to God in the midst of daily life, and can be open each day to the new possibilities God brings.
Jana M. Bennett