Dear Friend,

Friday of the Second Week of Advent    December 9, 2022

Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin

Isaiah 48: 17-19

Reflection by Rev. Msgr. Joseph Reilly

On this date nearly five hundred years ago, in 1531, the “perfect and perpetual Virgen Mary, Mother of Jesus, the true God” first appeared to Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin while he was making his way to daily Mass.  Her title in italics are the actual words that Our Lady used to introduce herself to Juan Diego along the path of Tepayec Hill on the outskirts of Mexico City.  A recent convert, Juan Diego embraced his faith in Jesus Christ with a simple and trusting spirit.  When asked by the Blessed Mother to request that the bishop build a church at the site, Juan Diego humbly delivered the message, but was unsuccessful in convincing the bishop, who asked for a sign from Mary to prove or authenticate his story. 

Mary instructed Juan Diego to go to the top of the mountain and pick some flowers.  Amidst the barren landscape he found roses, like those from Castille, Spain, not normally found in Mexico.  Juan Diego gathered the flowers into his tilma, a sort of poncho, and brought them to Mary, who arranged them.  Making his way to the bishop, Juan Diego opened his tilma to present the roses.  Impressed on Juan Diego’s tilma was the beautiful image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  This very image, fashioned by the Virgin Mary herself onto a poor man’s poncho, remains perfectly preserved at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.  All of this by means of a “man of no importance,” as St Juan Diego described himself to Our Lady. 

So many of us, myself included, might describe ourselves with similar words – our seemingly mundane and insignificant lives are largely unnoticed beyond our own sphere of existence.  Our worlds are small.  Our vision limited.  Our understanding is often biased and broken.  While we cannot achieve greatness on our own, the prophet Isaiah in the first reading from Mass today extends to us more than a glimmer of hope: “I, the Lord, your God, teach you what is for your good, and lead you on the way you should go.”

As we continue on our Advent journey, and as we recall St. Juan Diego, there is a message we are meant to hear and to embrace: God comes to us as we are, in our smallness and inadequacy, and draws us into his loving plan of salvation.  God sees beyond what separates to what restores.  God looks into our hearts and sees beyond hurt to what will bring healing.  God recognizes each one of us and our own tilma, and deeply desires to impress his loving design upon our lives. 

One final word about St. Juan Diego: after the church was built on Tepayac Hill, he moved into a small hut nearby to help care for pilgrims and above all, to pray.  He remained there until is his death on December 9th, 1548, the anniversary of the first apparition.  He was a “man of no importance” whose faith and trust in God changed the world, literally - it began on his way to mass.

Nestled between two major Marian feasts, little Juan Dieguito could easily be missed or dismissed as insignificant.   May this not be the case for you and me this Advent.  May his prayers, and the loving intercession of our Blessed Mother assist each one of us to move from fickleness to fidelity to fecundity. 

Prayer:

Dear God, you are the Lord of the small and you call each of us to greatness in your sight.  Help me to trust in your plan for me and always keep my eyes fixed on you.  Amen.

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Rev. Msgr. Joseph Reilly, S.T.L., Ph.D., former Rector/Dean, Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology. He holds a Bachelor of Sacred Theology from Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, a licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL) from Pontificio Istituto Teresianum, Rome, and a Ph.D. in Educational Administration from Fordham University. He has served as a member of the Archdiocesan Priest Personnel Board, the Advisory Committee on Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests, the Archdiocesan Vocations Board, and the Board of Trustees of Seton Hall University. Pope John Paul II named him a Chaplain to His Holiness in 2005, with the title of Reverend Monsignor. In 2016 during the Holy Year of Mercy, the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization sought priests who were living signs "of the Father's welcome to all those in search of His forgiveness." He was the only priest from the Archdiocese of Newark formally commissioned as a Missionary of Mercy by Pope Francis.