Today, Tuesday the 12th of December, is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadeloupe, one of the so-called "Black Madonna's."
She is known as the one "who crushes the serpent."
I have a special devotion to Nuestra Senora Guadeloupe from the piety of my Grandmother.
Mia VaVoa (my Grandmother) had "little shrines everywhere" in her home - the most prominent among them were those to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
VaVoa particularly loved the fact that Mary came to the people of Mexico as the apparition of an Azetec Princess who spoke to Juan Diego in his native tongue.
"After all," she would explain, "isn't this what God did in the form of Jesus?"
The following is Pope John Paul II’s Prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe
O Immaculate Virgin, Mother of the true God and Mother of the Church!, who from this place reveal your clemency and your pity to all those who ask for your protection, hear the prayer that we address to you with filial trust, and present it to your Son Jesus, our sole Redeemer.
Mother of Mercy, Teacher of hidden and silent sacrifice, to you, who come to meet us sinners, we dedicate on this day all our being and all our love. We also dedicate to you our life, our work, our joys, our infirmities and our sorrows. Grant peace, justice and prosperity to our peoples; for we entrust to your care all that we have and all that we are, our Lady and Mother. We wish to be entirely yours and to walk with you along the way of complete faithfulness to Jesus Christ in His Church; hold us always with your loving hand.
Virgin of Guadalupe, Mother of the Americas, we pray to you for all the Bishops, that they may lead the faithful along paths of intense Christian life, of love and humble service of God and souls. Contemplate this immense harvest, and intercede with the Lord that He may instill a hunger for holiness in the whole people of God, and grant abundant vocations of priests and religious, strong in the faith and zealous dispensers of God’s mysteries.
Grant to our homes the grace of loving and respecting life in its beginnings, with the same love with which you conceived in your womb the life of the Son of God. Blessed Virgin Mary, protect our families, so that they may always be united, and bless the upbringing of our children.
Our hope, look upon us with compassion, teach us to go continually to Jesus and, if we fall, help us to rise again, to return to Him, by means of the confession of our faults and sins in the Sacrament of Penance, which gives peace to the soul.
We beg you to grant us a great love for all the holy Sacraments, which are, as it were, the signs that your Son left us on earth.
Thus, Most Holy Mother, with the peace of God in our conscience, with our hearts free from evil and hatred, we will be able to bring to all true joy and true peace, which come to us from your son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Amen.
His Holiness John Paul II
Mexico, January 1979. Visiting Her Basilica during his first foreign trip as Pope.
Thank you for the prayer to our Mother God. I am encouraged to stay steady in my call to give voice to our God the Mother. I believe as affirmed in
ReplyDeleteIsaiah 6:9-10 from today's Lectionary, that our God desires us to see Glory not with our eyes nor hear with our ears; but with our hearts should we seek to understand Divinely.
I dare say I believe we are also meant to seek in our wombs, the sacred life and death of our Christ. It is understandable that this complete vision of God ,beyond gender, is very challenging to men , being the half of us not born with wombs. The shame is that men who do not seek to understand the wombness of life, have depleted their own power of soul. They have sought to simplify Divinty by nuetralizing the Divine down to the falsely defined common pronoun "He". They have fooled themselves into believing "He" and
"She" are the same. They rest in false shelters that house His words. I pray that they witness She-ness of God before the Glory, that they may not be trapped in their own deception.
Thank You Elizabeth for sharing this prayer..."Mother of Mercy, Teacher of hidden and silent sacrifice, to you, who come to meet us sinners, we dedicate on this day all our being and all our love. We also dedicate to you our life, our work, our joys, our infirmities and our sorrows". Amen.
For the sake of God's Glory I pray that women continue to try to illuminate the female essence of God for our fathers and brothers.
Joy of Advent. It is a blessing to wait on God in silence.
Dear Deborah,
ReplyDelete"It is understandable that this complete vision of God ,beyond gender, is very challenging to men..."
not all men.
I also have a reflection on Mary of Guadalupe on my blog: iwentg.blogspot.com/2006/12/feast-of-our-lady-of-guadalupe-mary.html
argh ... the proper URL is
ReplyDeleteweiwentg.blogspot.com/2006/12/feast-of-our-lady-of-guadalupe-mary.html
Deborah,
ReplyDeletePlease realize the prayer is not to God, but to St Mary the Virgin.
Dear Timotheos,
ReplyDeleteIt seems you are quite sure that Mother of God and God are two different entities. Is gender your criteria? Do you perceive of God as contained in a framework...of say Gender??
If God made all and is in all then a prayer to Mary the Mother of Jesus, God made Man, is inclusive of God.