We Are Not Alone

BY LIDIA MENDOZA

“¿No estoy yo aquí, que soy tu Madre?  

¿No estás bajo mi sombra?”[1]

"Am I not here, am I not your mother? Are you not in my shadow?"

These are the words that enlarge the heart and make it start beating in hope, a hope of knowing we are not alone. We have the maternal presence of Mary.

The Virgin of Guadalupe wanted to embrace the culture of the indigenous people. She inculturated herself in order to to carry this message of love to a people who suffered under the Spanish conquest. She wanted to restore dignity to the indigenous people, who felt they had lost their roots.

But the Guadalupe message is not just for the conquered people, but also for the conquerors. The Virgin dares, so to speak, to join two races, two cultures that were seen as enemies. She goes beyond inequalities and decides to make a new “civilization”, which was neither Native nor Spanish. I believe strongly that this is one of the great miracles that the guadalupanos achieve: unite two worlds, two cultural realities to generate a new one, the mestizo.

Our Lady did not carry out this mission alone; she asked for help from one of her sons, one of the "smaller" as she calls him. She put her trust in Juan Diego.

Despite all the difficulties Juan Diego endured to get the  bishops to believe his words, he goes ahead because  he believed and trusted in the words of the Virgin, because he experienced the love of Guadalupe. He was able to discover "the true God for whom we live" through her.

This is what drove Juan Diego to continue their mission. He knew the work was not his and even though he felt poor, helpless, and weak, he decided to put all his trust in the words of the Virgin: "Am I not here, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow? "

The message of Guadalupe is currently in force, the Virgin again wants to reunite all those where in situations where there is division, where people lack hope, and where people feel abandoned. We are invited  to believe and trust in Him, as did Juan Diego, and to become her messengers.

We are fragile and poor, but we know that we carry a message of love much bigger than our littleness. This is the time when we can be protagonists in the story, as was Juan Diego at the time. We do not pretend to work great miracles, but seek to make God present through the Virgin in everyday things, so that He is revealed in our society.

After Juan Diego presented the tilma to the bishop, he continued to witness to the love of the Virgin who had changed his life and put into motion this great plan. Let us be encouraged to be messengers of God’s love in our life, revealed through His Mother.

Lidia Mendoza is a member of the Fr. Kolbe Missionaries of the Immaculata from Maneadero, Mexico. Through the work of Maria del Rosario (FKM), she came to know and love the Kolbean spirituality. Lidia had the courage to leave her country in order to enter the Institute; she is currently in the community in Villa Ballester, Argentina. It is from there that she shares with us her reflection of hope and missionary enthusiasm. Thank you Lidia!

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[1] Historia de las apariciones de la Virgen de Guadalupe. Introducción y comentario sobre el texto náhuatl de Cloromiro L. Siller A.