The Message of Guadalupe: Mercy

What is most significant about the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe is that Mary appears as an Aztec, an indigena or “Indian” woman. This is what makes Our Lady of Guadalupe the symbol and call to “mercy” in our times. 

Mary appeared to Juan Diego, an Aztec peasant, and left her picture imprinted on his tilma — the cloak worn by the native people. In the picture, Mary appears as an Aztec, an indigena or “Indian” woman. The word spread quickly, and many came by the thousands, from hundreds of miles away, to see the image of the Mother of God who showed herself as one of their own people, and who had spoken in their native language. 

To receive the message of Guadalupe, we have to remember the context in which Mary appeared. The ruling class in Mexico did not consider itself as forming one society or nation with the indigenous people. The “Indios” were looked upon as an inferior culture to be used for the purposes of those who governed them. It was in this context that Mary, the Mother of God, appeared with the face of a native woman, dressed like a native woman, and spoke to an indigenous peasant, not only in his native language, but through signs and symbols of his native culture, which identified her as one of his own people. 

The message was clear: the God of the Christians was not the God of the Spaniards or the ruling classes, but the God of all. Mary, the Mother of God, identified herself with the native people, the poor, the oppressed — with precisely those people with whom the rich and ruling class refused to identify themselves. She, the Mother of God, was their mother. They were her children. The indigenous population was her family. 

This is the message Our Lady of Guadalupe gave then, and still gives to our world today. We all live in countries characterised by division: racial, ethnic, political and social.  Our Lady of Guadalupe calls us to form one community, one family with the whole human race. This is why she is Our Lady of Mercy. 

This is why it is not enough to help the poor; we have to identify with the poor. Unless one accepts to see oneself and the poor  — and the immigrant, the emotionally disturbed, the disadvantaged of every sort — as equal members of one society which aims at the good of all, what Christians mean by “mercy” is not possible. The mercy we ask God for at Mass, and which God commands us to show to others, is an aid based on a recognition of relationship. This is piedad. 

To truly accept the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we have to deliberately choose to be and to form one society, one community, one family with the whole human race — beginning with those in our own country, city, parish and workplace. As long as we look upon any group of people as “others” with whom we have no relationship or identification, we cannot show “mercy” to them, and we are deceiving ourselves if we even claim to accept, much less have devotion to, the “patroness of all the Americas”: Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

— Fr. David M. Knight

View today’s Mass readings, Lectionary #690A,  on the USCCB website here

Fr. David M. Knight (1931-2021) was a priest of the Diocese of Memphis in Tennessee, a prolific writer, and a highly sought after confessor, spiritual director, and retreat master. He authored more than 40 books and hundreds of articles that focus primarily on lay spirituality and life-long spiritual growth.