Pope: Our Lady of Guadalupe reminds us to welcome virtues

By Christopher Wells

In his homily for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Pope Francis focused on the miraculous image preserved on the tilma, or cloak, of St Juan Diego, to whom Our Lady appeared.

“It is the image of the first disciple, of the mother of all believers, of the Church herself,” the Pope said, “which is imprinted in the humility of what we are and what we have, which is not worth much, but which will be something great in the eyes of God.”

The Pope went on to reflect on the “small task” Mary gave to Juan Diego, to gather some flowers. “The flowers, in mysticism, signify the virtues that the Lord instils in the heart, they are not our own work,” he explained. “The act of picking them reveals to us that God wants us to accept this gift, to perfume our weak reality with works of good, eliminating hatred and fear.”

Pope Francis then turned to the message of Guadalupe, and Our Lady’s words, “Am I not here, I who am your mother?” These words, the Pope said, show that the “being” of the Virgin “is to remain permanently imprinted on these poor clothes, perfumed by virtues gathered in a world that seems incapable of producing them.”

These virtues, he said, “fill our poverty in the simplicity of small gestures of love.” They “illuminate our tilma, without our realizing it, with the image of a Church that carries Christ in her bosom.”

This image on the tilma, he concluded, is a simple message, needing no explanation. “It is a message that protects us from so many social and political ideologies” that often seek to use the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe to justify themselves. But, the Pope said, the message of Guadalupe does not tolerate ideologies of any kind. “Only the image, the tilma, the roses,” remain.