At 6 pm this afternoon in the Vatican Basilica, the Holy Father Francis presided over the Eucharistic Celebration on the occasion of the Liturgical Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Guadalupe.
We publish below the homily that the Pope pronounced after the proclamation of the Holy Gospel:
Homily of the Holy Father
Our God guides human history at every moment; nothing remains outside his power, which is tenderness and providential love. He makes himself present through a deed, an action, an event, or a person. He never stops watching over our world—needy and wounded—to assist it with his compassion and mercy. His way of intervening, of manifesting himself, always surprises us, and fills us with joy.
The reading from the letter to the Galatians gives us a precise indication that helps us gratefully contemplate his plan to redeem us and make us his adopted children: “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman” (Gal 4:4).
Yes, the coming of his Son in human flesh is the supreme expression of his divine plan directed toward our salvation. The God who so loved the world, sent us his Son, “born of a woman,” so that “whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). Thus, in Jesus, born of Mary, the Eternal One enters the precariousness of our time, becomes forever and irreversibly “God-with-us”, and walks beside us as brother and companion. He came to stay. Nothing that is ours is foreign to him because he is “one of us”, close, a friend, consubstantial with us in everything but sin.
Nearly five centuries ago, at a complicated and difficult time for the inhabitants of the new world, the Lord wanted to transform the upheaval brought about by the encounter between two different worlds into a recovery of meaning and dignity, into openness to the Gospel. This he did by sending Mary, his Mother, in the logic of which today’s Gospel reminds us: after the angel’s tidings, “Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah” (I 1:39). Thus, Our Lady of Guadalupe came to the blessed lands of America, presenting herself as the “Mother of the true God for whom we live” (cf. Nican Mopohua) to console and attend to the needs of the little ones, without excluding anyone, to embrace them as a caring mother with her presence, love and consolation.
In the many painful crossroads of our present history, we are not alone. God continues to send us the Mother of his Son, who sets out today, just as she did then, “in haste”—caring—”in the of time appointed” by the divine goodness. Our Lady of Guadalupe invites us to leave behind all the prejudices and fears that populate our hearts and to trust in the “true God for whom we live,” joyfully and confidently directing us to reaffirm our belonging to the Lord.
This year we celebrate Guadalupe at a difficult time for humanity. It is a bitter time, filled with the rumbling of war, growing injustice, famine, poverty and suffering. And although this horizon seems bleak and disconcerting, with omens of even greater destruction and desolation, his divine love and his coming down to us tell us that this too is a propitious time of salvation, in which the Lord, through the Virgin Mother, continues to give us his Son, who calls us to fraternity, to set aside selfishness, indifference and enmity, inviting us to get involved with each other “without delay”, to go out to meet our brothers and sisters who have been forgotten and discarded by our consumerist and indifferent societies.
In this celebration here in Saint Peter’s Basilica, the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe wants to meet us too as she one day met Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac. She wants to stay with us. She begs us to allow her to be our mother, to open our lives to her Son Jesus and to welcome his message so as to learn to love like him.
Today, December 12, the Guadalupian Intercontinental Novena begins on the American continent, a journey that prepares for the celebration of the Fifth Centennial of the Guadalupian Apparition in 2031.
I therefore urge all members of the pilgrim Church in the Americas, pastors and faithful, to participate in this celebratory journey that aims to promote an encounter with God through Our Lady of Guadalupe, for the renewal of the social and ecclesial fabric of these peoples and communities.
Let us thank the Lord for the immense tenderness he has shown us by sending his Most Holy Mother to our American continent. She continues to watch over us and show us her maternal tenderness, consolation and aid. She wants to remind us that it was the Gospel that shaped the soul of Latin America, and that as believers in Christ it is our responsibility to be credible witnesses of the love of Jesus Christ
and decisive protagonists in building a new culture that cares, includes and rehabilitates.
May Jesus Christ, the desired one of all the nations, grant us through the intercession of Our Mother of Guadalupe, days filled with joy and serenity, so that the peace of the Lord may dwell in our hearts and in the hearts of all men and women of good will.
Maranathá! Come, Lord Jesus!
