A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus said, come to me all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden light. And this is the gospel of the lord.
Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. We are celebrating today the feast of our lady of Guadalupe. This is a shrine to our blessed mother on the outskirts of Mexico City, and there is now there a brand new basilica to replace the old one, which was sinking and falling apart. Now, anyone who has gone and visited Mexico City becomes aware of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Sometimes even before you get there, you may see a little image or a picture of her in the in the Mexican Airlines airplane. If you don't see it there, you're almost sure to see it in the taxi you get into at the airport. And wherever you go in Mexico City, and in Mexico generally, you will find images, pictures of all sorts to Our Lady of Guadalupe. And of course, devotion to her has spread to largely in the Latin world, but not exclusively there. She is the patroness of South America, Mexico City, of The Philippines.
Well, she's the patroness of a lot of countries, which we call Latin America or Spanish speaking. Now, when our good American citizens visit the Shrine Of Guadalupe, as I say just outside of Mexico City, practically in the city. Now the city has moved out around it. Many are scandalized. Many are scandalized.
And I must say when I got there myself on my first visit, the new cathedral and the new basilica hadn't been started yet. It was a rather early morning and it was kind of a cold, grayish, dismal morning. The first thing that struck me, of course, as it strikes anyone else is this long line of people stretching all the way from the sanctuary in the basilica, all the way down the middle aisle, and all the way across the huge esplanade, and into the city on their knees, carrying candles. And then all around you see, many of them are Indians, Mexican Indians, and they're prepared they were preparing their breakfast over charcoal burners and it was a great and this was just an ordinary morning. This wasn't a special pilgrimage or anything.
And here was this long line. I really I can't exaggerate it. And well, you can't help but being I mean, that's a fact. Whatever you may think about it, that is a fact. And I'm a great respecter of facts.
I get along well with engineers. And so I I did the usual things, and I got talking to one of the Augustinian friars who were in charge of it. And I had a startling denouement. Because I was under the impression all these people on their knees carrying candles and some of them were were so disabled or something or other that they had to be assisted by younger people. I was under the impression that these people were all at the shrine a asking for favors.
I mean, that's what that's the normal reaction. Only one leper out of 10 returned to give thanks, you know. And lo and behold, this good priest says, oh, no. He said, they're not here to ask for it. They're all here to give thanks for favors received.
That's what the man said. Now I just reread in the New Catholic Encyclopedia what the article on Our Lady of Guadalupe. You know what's the first apparition to Juan Diego was in 1531. Now the point I'd like to make about that is something we can overlook. See, we think of 1531 as very old, as very primitive, as dealing with people who are very elemental.
Well, let me tell you that's just completely wrong when you're you're It it's right if you're thinking about North America, and the wash fish sections of North America. We weren't even beginning to get a start up here. They had a university in Mexico City. The the Ecclesiastics who had any dealings with Juan Diego, they were intelligent, well educated men, and highly critical. Highly critical.
They they weren't about to be taken in by any kind of foolishness. We have to keep that in mind. Mexico City was a very civilized city compared to anything we had up here in 1531. And that anyone and and all the church authorities that had any dealings with this Juan Diego, they would they were very intelligent men. They they knew all about how you have these apparitions coming and and going, that you know they're dime a dozen.
And anyone with any sense knows that. If you don't believe me, go over to Saint Elizabeth's. You can find or you used to. Now they put them out on the streets. But it used to be that we had any number of mentally ill people out there.
It had all kinds of visions. I that's the first point I wanna make. There were language difficulties. Juan Diego spoke no Spanish. The Archbishop of Mexico City did not speak the Indian language, so they had to use an interpreter.
That created some difficulties. Whenever you have an interpreter, there are always difficulties to think of Poland and the visit of our chief administrator of state over there not so long ago. Now, the second point is the is again a fact, a fact. You have there enshrined in a big frame, this sort of an apron which Don or that Juan Diego was wearing when he was supposed to bring the flowers, and he went and opened his apron out took out came a bunch of roses. Now, within our within within recent years, the most advanced sophisticated experiments were done, performed on this whatever it is.
You can't call it a tapestry, it's not a tapestry. And whatever else you may say about it, not a single not a single item was revealed which contradicts the tradition, not a single item. And they they analyzed ad nauseam, the quality of the cloth, the painting, I mean the the dyes and so forth, and all of this. The first thing is negatively. Not a single item was revealed or discovered that in any way, in any way weakened the credibility of the image as going back to to Juan Diego 1531.
First point. And on the other hand, you have this as a fact that this happened. So, negatively, you certainly haven't anything against it, and positively you have a tradition that goes all the way back to 1531. Now having said all of this, you see here is a person will say, oh, yes, I know. That all may be very true.
And maybe the Virgin did did appear to to Juan Diego. And maybe this is all authentic. But look how it detracts from worship of God. Here you put up this image of a of a young girl, and you pay her all kinds of attention, and these people forget there's a God. You don't see them going around putting up images of Christ and so forth, at least they say that.
And you don't see you certainly do not see them as numerous as you see Our Lady of Guadalupe around Mexico City and elsewhere. What does this prove? Well, of course, it it doesn't prove anything. Because these things can be extremely misleading. Cardinal Newman, and let me tell you, Cardinal Newman faced all these difficulties.
He did not become a Roman Catholic because he was a gullible, credulous man. And in his time, this devotion to the lady was a great obstacle, as it is today for many people who otherwise tend favorably towards Catholicism. They look upon Mary as a a scandal, an obstacle between them and God. It can be. Of course, it can.
Remember, it was Aristotle who said the destruction of the best is the worst. The destruction, the misuse, the abuse of the best is the worst. So what can you argue from the the abuse of something good? You can take a sterling silver knife and use it and use it as a screwdriver, but you know what it does to the sterling silver. Much better to go out and get yourself a stainless steel screwdriver.
And the purer the gold, the softer it is, and the more liable it is to abuse, to destruction. So the arguing from the abuse of something doesn't prove anything. Just proves people are ignorant. But as Newman pointed out, where and he would was a he based he was an historian. Newman was not a theoretician.
He was a psychologist and a man who respected facts. And it was Newman's consider even before he came into the church, the Roman church, he insisted that wherever you had devotion to Mary, you had devotion to her son. And where in the reverse, when you had forgetfulness, downgrading of Mary, you had also lack of respect and love for her son. That was Newman's considered opinion, and he knew a great deal about these things. And he wasn't he didn't shy away from facing reality.
It's easy to to to deduce. Remember, our modern scientific mind is not deductive, it's so called inductive. It's easy to deduce conclusions from what we think are self evident phenomena, and it's so easy to deduce wrong conclusions. That is when you get beneath the surface of things. You because Mary, remember, anyone who sits sits down quietly and thinks about it.
Mary has no worth, no value apart from her son Jesus Christ. Mary is no divine being. And don't let and don't think that of any sensible Mexican makes that confusion. Never for one minute think it. And and by that, I mean even the Indians today or any day.
They don't make that they don't make that confusion at all. When you respect a man's mother, you are respecting him. You're not downgrading him at all. I've seen very many instances of that and some very outstanding ones. And so the whole attitude of the Catholic church towards and remember, this goes back to the Greek church.
This goes back to the most to the earliest centuries of the church, to to the councils of Ephesus, Nicaea, Constantinople, Chalcedon. You're not talking to something that started 1531. The devotion of the church to Mary is legitimate because she was a legitimate mother of God. Now that's either a fact or it's one of the worst and most hypocritical and disastrous lies that have ever been perpetrated. And if this woman, plain ordinary woman in many in every way, if we hail her as the mother of God, how can you downgrade her without downgrading her son?
And if you love her son, how can you not love his mother? In the name of the father, the son, and the spirit. Amen.