By Father Joseph Fahy, CP

In the brisk chill of early dawn on Wednesday, Dec. 12, Bishop James P. Lyke, OFM, and priests of the Hispanic Apostolate, Father Edward Salazar, SJ, Father Brian Pierce, OP, and Father Joseph Fahy, CP, celebrated Mass under a red and white tent in Grant Park, Permanent Deacon Rafael Cintrón assisted Bishop Lyke.

The warmth of faith and love of Our Lady in those attending, the moving religious melodies in honor of María de Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico and Empress of the Americas, markedly dispelled the cold of the early winter morn. Bishop Lyke’s homily, delivered in Spanish, recounted the tender history of Mary’s appearances in December, 1531, to the humble native Juan Diego.

This moving dawn liturgy at Grant Park in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe was one of 19 Guadalupe commemorations celebrated in the archdiocese.

When Mary appeared to Juan Diego, Mexico had been recently conquered by Cortes’ band of Spaniards. Wanton cruelty, destruction, despoliation, massive violence and loss of life accompanied the bloody conquest. The native peoples experienced the collapse of their social structures and the condemnation and rejection of their cultural values and religious traditions. Deep depression, demoralization, hopelessness, and bitter hatred and suspicion of the European conquistadors abounded among the conquered.

Simultaneously with the conquest came the first Spanish missionaries. They were Franciscans whose lives were a dramatic contrast to those of numerous conquerors. These dedicated friars were immersed in the new learning of Erasmus and Thomas More, ardent in their evangelical zeal to spread the Gospel, and poor in their evangelical lifestyles – marvelous effects of the recently reformed Spanish Church of Cardinal Cisneros, also a Franciscan. Yet, their heroic efforts, learning, holiness of life, and innovative evangelizing approaches, were unable to effect many conversions among the conquered peoples.

In the midst of this widespread chaos, despair, and desolation, Mary, the Mother of God, María de Guadalupe, appeared as a native princess, “La Morenita,” “the dark one.” María de Guadalupe appeared as one of the vanquished, discriminated, despised race of native peoples. With exquisite tenderness María addressed “Juanito, Juan Dieguito,” her “smallest son” in the native language Nahuatl of the conquered, not in the Castellano of the conquerors. The Mother of God asked Juan Diego to go to the Franciscan bishop, Juan de Zumarraga, and request that the prelate build a temple where she would manifest her maternal “love, compassion, aid and defense.”

In the new temple to be erected in honor of the Mother of God, both conqueror and conquered would gradually be transformed into the living Body of Jesus’ disciples, through the proclamation of the Gospel, and the celebration of the Eucharist. Mary, who was the first one to carry Christ to another, her kinswoman Elizabeth, was also, as María de Guadalupe, the first to carry her son Jesus to the New World. Mary’s most ardent desire is that the ideals and values of her son Jesus be formed in the hearts of His disciples. La Morenita restores dignity to the vanquished, as she manifests that before God there is no difference of race, and of peoples. (Acts 10:34,35)