We Can Be Juan

"O God, Father of mercies, who placed your people under the singular protection of your Son's most holy Mother, grant that all who invoke the Blessed Virgin of Guadalupe, may seek with ever more lively faith the progress of peoples in the ways of justice and of peace." ~ from today's Collect

Today is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I love the story of how the Virgin Mary appeared to a peasant man in Mexico named Juan Diego and used him as an instrument to demonstrate God's glory. Calling him by name, she spoke to him in his own language. She transformed his ordinary cloak into a miracle that has survived 500 years as a testimony to their encounter. His story brought a bishop of disbelief to his knees.

God comes to us in the unlikely, in the unthinkable, in the inconceivable. God uses a language that we understand and appears in a way that we can recognize the Holy. We are never the same after that moment. Juan was doing nothing extraordinary when the Blessed Mother appeared to him. He was simply going about his day when his whole reality would change. The encounter would alter how people thought about poor people and their worthiness for centuries. The story would become known as a story of peace and justice.

We can all be Juan Diegos. In our daily life, we need to be prepared to recognize the Holy when it calls us by name. We need to open our hearts to say yes, as Mary and Juan did, to the possibility that something bigger at work needs us. If we accept what is being asked of us, who knows what might happen and how huge of an impact it will have? However, we should not let ourselves get distracted by that. Our task is just to keep our eyes on the Holy in life. The rest is up to God.

Peace,

Suzanne