Friends
Peace be with you.
Tomorrow/today is a very important day for the church in Mexico and all of Latin America really. It is the feast day of St. Juan Diego who was a simple peasant under Spanish rule and who, in 1531 while walking to Mass, found himself visited by a woman dressed like an Aztec princess who identified herself as “ever-perfect holy Mary, who has the honor to be the mother of the true God." When St. Juan Diego recounted this story to his local bishop, the prelate was understandably skeptical. He told St. Juan Diego he needed to ponder over what he was telling him to decide if he thought it was legitimate or not. The next day, Mary appeared to St. Juan Diego again and sent him back to the Bishop with a gift that knocked the cleric to his knees: fresh roses that wouldn’t have grown this time of year in their climate and her image fixed on Juan’s cactus-based coat in such that way that does not seem to have been painted and has lasted five hundred years despite being made with materials that typically last 10-15. Why would Mary appear to Juan Diego? Why appear in Mexico? Why not come slightly farther north to a country that would eventually be a world superpower and convert the colonies from the beginning? Imagine how much different things would be if she had just waited a little while longer, say 1774 or 1777, and been Our Lady of Philadelphia or New York or even our Lady of Cedar Rapids. Yet, that is often not the way God works.
It is within this context that we hear of Jesus’ cousin, St. John the Baptist. St. Luke, situates the beginning of John’s ministry both in time and in contrast. In other words, he lists the names of a group of leaders so that the hearer will know in what year it takes place and will have a reminder of the corruption of those leaders as well. Luke is using these names to remind people of the murder and corruption these men did. He does this so he can contrast St. John the Baptist, a man of unparalleled holiness who spoke truth to power. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that St. John the Baptist was a political revolutionary or a competitor with Caesar and Pilate and all those folks. I’m saying the exact opposite of that. The truth he spoke was about the fulfillment of the Old Testament Prophecy spoken in our first reading about God leveling mountains and filling valleys to prepare for his coming. St. John the Baptist called on people to be prepared for the coming of the Lord
At the time of St. Juan Diego, Spanish Franciscan missionaries had been working to convert the people of Mexico for 20 years with very little success. Because of this revelation of our Lady, approximately 90 million Latin American people would be converted in the next 10 years, a feat only possible through the action of God. And that happened, not through the most powerful of subjects or to the most powerful country in the world but to a peasant, considered less in dignity by most of the Europeans trying to colonize Mexico. And, as I said before, Mexico itself is a country that has always struggled to provide adequate resources for its citizenry. Why would God there to this man, this peasant saint?
To remind us that human power pales in comparison to the power of God, that human wisdom seems like foolishness compared to the wisdom of God, and the good things we prize on earth seem pathetic compared to the great things God wants for us. In this world where powerful people seem to constantly want all of our attention in order to have a greater control of our lives, we remind ourselves that God’s plan is always better than human plans. We just need to be humbly open to the way God appears in our lives.
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