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Our Lady of Guadalupe - Marian Icon

Mother of the Civilization of Love to Visit New Jersey Parishes

: Our Lady of Guadalupe Marian Icon with Fourth Degree Honor Guard

By Carl A. Anderson, Supreme Knight

For nearly 500 years, millions of people have shown great devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, struck by her words to Juan Diego, “Am I not your Mother?” From her first appearance at Tepeyac in 1531, she has bestowed on humanity a tender motherly concern, and this remains an important part of her message today. If we approach Our Lady of Guadalupe as our mother, then she is not only a mother to us, she is a mother to everyone. That means that we are all one family, despite our different countries and cultures.

Blessed John Paul II referred to this fact when he wrote in Ecclesia in America: “The appearance of Mary to the native Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac in 1531 had a decisive effect on evangelization. Its influence greatly overflows the boundaries of Mexico, spreading to the whole Continent. America, which historically has been, and still is, a melting-pot of peoples, has recognized in the mestiza face of the Virgin of Tepeyac, ‘in Blessed Mary of Guadalupe, an impressive example of a perfectly inculturated evangelization.’ Consequently, not only in Central and South America, but in North America as well, the Virgin of Guadalupe is venerated as Queen of all America”

He also wrote that the “renewal of the Church in America will not be possible without the active presence of the laity. Therefore, they are largely responsible for the future of the Church”.

So we must ask ourselves, what is the meaning of Our Lady of Guadalupe today? Does she play the same role in our countries’ history as she has for nearly 500 years? How do we respond to the great commandment of our Lord (love our neighbor as our self)? This is the real message of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s motherly concern for each of us - that each person is actually a member of our family. And as Pope Benedict XVI told us in his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is Love): In a family no member must go hungry or lack the necessities of life.

With this truth in mind, the Knights of Columbus has embarked on a pilgrimage with Our Lady of Guadalupe, bearing her image from council to council, from parish to parish, to spread her message and her love. Through this Marian Prayer Program, we have a chance to gather as a family before the mother of humanity and offer our prayers and intentions. I know that this will be a time of grace for all our members and their families, and I pray that Our Lady of Guadalupe will bring us closer together as an Order, as a Church, as a community and as a world in need of her words of peace and unity.

Introduction of the Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Msgr. Eduardo Chávez Sánchez
Postulator of the Cause of the Canonization of Saint Juan Diego

The Virgin of Nazareth, the Woman of Tepeyac, is the Mother of God and our Mother. She is one of us in blood and nature, and through her humanity has given us her Son, Jesus Christ. In this “sacred house,” Our lady gives us freedom from all oppresses: sin and death. In this temple in this living Church we are truly set free for life in God.

The Virgin of Guadalupe’s mission is the essence of evangelization. She is the first disciple and missionary of God’s love. In bringing together peoples of the Old World and the New World the Madonna of Tepeyac is a symbol of the fraternity that should exist among all of the earth’s races: in her mestiza face – so sweet and serene – we are all her children. All human beings in Jesus Christ are Mary’s children, Mother of the Church, Model of the Church.

In 2007, in Aparecida, Brazil, Pope Benedict XVI gathered with the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean for the Fifth General Conference. Present among them was the successor to the first Bishop on Mexico, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, the Archbishop Primate of Mexico City. The final document of the conference included a statement fill with the dew of Tepeyac. Mary it said “because she gave birth to the Savior of the world brought the
Gospel to our America. In the Guadalupan event she presided with the humble Juan Diego at the Pentecost that opened to us the gifts of the Spirit.” Moreover, the bishops joyfully proclaimed “All those baptized are called to ‘begin anew in Christ’ to recognize and to follow his presence with the same reality and freshness, the same power and affection, persuasion and hope we were found in his encounter with the first disciples on the banks of the Jordan 2,000 years ago, and with the ‘Juan Diegos’ of the new World.”

The message of Guadalupe contains all that is needed for the true freedom to love fully as Jesus destroys the chains of sin and we walk together as brother and sister. Let us go forward to build one people, one culture of life, one civilization of God’s love from the hand of Our Lady of Guadalupe who has promised that she “holds us in the crossing of her arms and the hollow of her mantle.”

Our Lady of Guadalupe asked her messenger Juan Diego (now a saint) to go to the Bishop with her request for a “sacred house” to be built on Tepeyac. She wanted her appearance to be seen within the context of the Catholic Church, which was founded by her Son as the sacrament of salvation for the entire world. She continues today to lead us to Jesus Christ, the foundation of the Church, and to proclaim that we are one people in the family of God.