“Am I not here, I who have the honor to be your Mother? Could there be anything else you need?”
(Words of Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego)
The day is over now, with all its cares and worries. I stand in front of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and slowly lay my head against her chest. I imagine her arms encircling me. Wrapped within her mantle, I can almost hear the slow beating of her heart. Here, I know that I am loved. Without a need for words, I allow her to hold me at the end of this day, her love my place of refuge.
“Am I not here, I who am your Mother?” she gently asks, “Could there be anything else you need?”
No. No, my deepest need to be received, received without a need to do anything more, has been met. I love this place at the end of my day when my heart can rest. I can rest within her heart, even as the Christ Child is resting, growing within her, His Heart beating with her heart. It’s a sacred moment.
It’s this moment which defines almost everything else in my life. At the end of this day, I know that I am loved – loved without conditions, loved deeply in all of my being – and everything else fades away. “Could there be anything else you need?” No matter what has been done or left undone, no matter my failings or the failings of others, no matter even my successes and my glories, what matters, what truly matters, is this love of my Mother – my Mother whose embrace lifts me to her Son.
I think of her words to Juan Diego, her desire that a Church be built:
“I want very much that they build my sacred little house here in which I will show Him, I will exalt Him upon making Him manifest, I will give Him to all people in all my personal love, Him that is my compassionate gaze, Him that is my help, Him that is my salvation. Because truly I am honored to be your compassionate Mother, yours and that of all the people who live together in this land, and also of all the other various lineages of men; those who love me, those who cry to me, those who seek me, those who trust in me. Because there [at my sacred house] truly will I hear their cry, their sadness, in order to remedy, to cure all their various troubles, their miseries, their pains.”
(The Nican Mopohua, qtd. in Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of Civilization of Love by Carl Anderson and Msgr. Eduardo Chávez, pgs 173-174).
Her love reaches out to her children. The love of this Mother comes to meet us and draw us towards her Son. Her love is as a soothing balm upon our wounds. Her very being is a place where we will encounter Christ and not be afraid to be loved by Him.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Mother of us all, receives us, restoring us to our identity as beloved. She beckons us to step aside from all the flurry of our day and to listen to her heart beating with the heart of Christ.
As we are held within her mantle, she slowly invites us to turn around, to face outward, to lift our arms in a gesture of welcome, that our love may become a refuge for others as her love is for us. May we, together with her, be a safe place for those longing to be received… A place where they may encounter the Christ.
Blessed Mother, in your love we need nothing more. May we live as daughters of your grace.
