Cardinal Cupich, assisted by Father Esequial Sanchez, rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines, prepares to celebrate the Eucharist on Jan. 16 with pilgrims at Santa Maria Tulpetlac Church, built over the site of Juan Bernardino, the uncle of San Juan Diego, in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo provided)
Cardinal Cupich traveled to Mexico City and the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe with pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Chicago Jan. 14-20. The pilgrimage was another opportunity to build the bond of friendship between the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Archdiocese of Mexico City, formalized in an agreement of cooperation signed in 1999. It also offered Catholics from Chicago the chance to learn about the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe to San Juan Diego and his uncle, Juan Bernardino, in December 1531. In two homilies during the pilgrimage, Cardinal Cupich emphasized the way Our Lady of Guadalupe connected in a real way with the people she spoke to, bridging the human and the divine. “Our Lady of Guadalupe is another opportunity to see God’s desire to tell us that he knows us, for she is depicted as a woman with Indigenous features, with the crescent moon under her feet familiar to the Aztec religious culture,” Cardinal Cupich said in his homily Jan. 18 at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He was preaching on the passage from Mark’s Gospel in which the scribes and the Pharisees questioned Jesus’ practice of sharing meals with tax collectors and sinners. “Her very appearance is in keeping with Jesus taking on our humanity, and God’s desire to convince us that God knows us, wants to draw near to us and that he is always coming to save us. Let that central truth give us the freedom to accept his invitation to eat and drink with him in the banquet of eternal life and free us from judging others,” Cardinal Cupich said. The message of the text is clear, he said. “Jesus knows us, knows our limitations, our weakness, our sufferings,” Cardinal Cupich said. “And so, unlike those who criticize Jesus, we should be glad he has come into the world to reach out to the lost and eat with sinners, because it means he has come for us and invites us to the eternal banquet.” Two days earlier, Cardinal Cupich preached the homily at a Mass for the pilgrims at Santa Maria Tulpetlac Church, built over the site of Juan Bernardino, the uncle of San Juan Diego. During the period of the apparitions, Juan Bernardino was gravely ill, and asked San Juan Diego to bring a priest to anoint him. Juan Diego obeyed, and a took a route to avoid the place where Our Lady had appeared to him, so as not to be delayed. He encountered Our Lady of Guadalupe anyway, and she assured him that his uncle would be healed even as he obeyed her instructions to bring the roses he found blooming on Tepeyac Hill to the bishop. When Juan Diego returned to his uncle’s house the next day, Juan Bernardino told him the lady had also appeared to him, and repeated her wish that a church be built on Tepeyac Hill and that she should be called “Our Lady of Guadalupe.” “None of these events would have happened if Juan Diego did not trust Mary and God’s plan,” Cardinal Cupich said. “He wanted to avoid her, but she pursued him. How many times has God pursued us and asks only that we trust him. When we do things beyond our imagination can happen. When we fail to trust we lose those opportunities and instead we become anxious and let worry paralyze us. So, today if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts, but instead open them hearts with trust.”
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