Are you familiar with the story of San Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe?
(To read the original story,
click here,......go ahead! Take a few seconds to read it!)
If not, here's the "reader's digest" version......long ago, Our Lady appeared several times to San Juan Diego on a little hill in Mexico with a request. She longed for a chapel to be built there. She wanted a holy place where people from all over could come to find rest and to worship her Son. She sent Juan Diego to the local bishop to ask him to build it. Juan made several visits to the bishop and each time, he turned him away. Finally, he told Juan Diego not to come back unless he brought some kind of sign from the Virgin. The bishop wanted proof that Juan was really being visited by our Heavenly Queen.
Juan Diego asked Mary for a sign to take to the bishop and she told him to pick some roses that were growing there. (These roses typically did not grow in Mexico in that time of year.) Then, she gracefully and with much care arranged them in his tilma (his shirt or cloak). Holding them carefully, Juan Diego returned to the bishop and opened his tilma, spilling the roses to the floor. Much to his surprise, on his shirt where Mary had arranged the roses so lovingly, was the image of the beautiful Virgin herself!
This image still exists and is displayed at a grand basilica in Mexico City where people from all over the world come to worship God and to honor His mother.
Take a moment to reflect on these words of Mama Mary, spoken so long ago to San Juan Diego. They still resound from Tepeyac Hill.....as if she is speaking to each of us, her youngest and dearest children:
"LISTEN. PUT IT INTO YOUR HEART, MY YOUNGEST AND DEAREST SON, THAT THE THING THAT FRIGHTENED YOU, THE THING THAT AFFLICTED YOU IS NOTHING: DO NOT LET IT DISTURB YOU: DO NOT FEAR THIS SICKNESS NOR ANY OTHER SICKNESS, NOR ANY SHARP AND HURTFUL THING. AM I NOT HERE, I, WHO AM YOUR MOTHER? ARE YOU NOT UNDER MY SHADOW AND PROTECTION? AM I NOT THE SOURCE OF YOUR JOY? ARE YOU NOT IN THE HOLLOW OF MY MANTLE, IN THE CROSSING OF MY ARMS? DO YOU NEED SOMETHING MORE? "
