Am I not your Mother?

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the celebration of the Virgin Mary's appearance to Juan Diego, a humble Indian of Mexican descent in 1531 to assure him of her "love, compassion, help, and protection to all who inhavit this land and to those others who love me."

What a delight this reading was, especially when learning that Juan Diego, sent to fetch a priest for his dying uncle "went around the hill and passed on the other side . . . so as to arrive quickly in Mexico City and to avoid being detained by the Heavenly Lady."

Like Juan avoiding the Lady, we too have at times gone out of our way to avoid meeting God. Like Mary to Juan Diego, God does not remonstrate or accuse or punish but rather assures us of love, compassion and help.

Like Mary, God comes to meet us at the place where we have gone to avoid him. Like Mary to Juan who went to meet him on the other side of the hill, God says to us "Are you not under my protection ... are you not in my care?"

All over the world

While reciting the morning liturgy of Lauds this morning with my husband, I suddenly became aware that we were praying not as a unit of 2 but as one small note within a symphony of prayer rising from monasteries, cloisters, churches, homes, beaches, forests, and farms -- at every moment, somewhere in the world others are praying the same psalms and reading the same lessons and praying the same invocations with us. What a glorious, comforting, and hopeful thought.

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