Day Five ~ Washington D.C.

I FIRST VISITED THIS CHAPEL in the late 1960's having joined a Franciscan Pilgrimage out of New York City to Washington, D.C. It is a side chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. At that time, this National Shrine was the seventh largest church in the world! I don't remember being taken on a tour of the great building but rather coming across this delightfully intimate chapel on my own. Everything about it said, "Don't stand on the threshold; come inside." 

In returning to D.C. a few weeks ago I had arranged to offer Mass here, fulfilling a boyhood dream. My sister accompanied me as we had both participated in the Shared Hope International conference on the Sex Trafficking of Minors. How fitting that these two events should have come together here as in the story of the Guadalupe appearances to Juan Diego, he addresses her as "my little girl." America's children, mostly girls, are being kidnapped, groomed and prostituted by the many thousands, and as a national people we are too often ignoring it, believing the problem exists on other continents. It is reported that girls as young as 3,4 and 5 are caught in this new form of slavery.

In preparation for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Feast of the Child of Bethlehem we might visit this site: Shared Hope International . Let's invite our believing to be turned into new knowledge and some kind of response-action. 

While my sister waited in the chapel for me to return from the sacristy after the Mass she sat on the side bench over which is a long line of candle bearing mosaic-pilgrims on their way to venerate the Guadalupe. She composed this strong poem there.

In the third stanza could the "armies of the dead" be the clergy who, and the self-protective policies which have so offended and failed the children of the Church?

Guadalupe Roses

See the Aztec Goddess, in so few words,

rise like maize above the frozen Tepeyec hills,

glow in mosaic, red yellow pink blue,

the arc of spectrum we all know, but that

had never been seen before in Mexico──

until she showered down upon Juan Dieguito

love in the form of Castilian roses.

See the beautiful women of so few words,

their handsome men and children, of fewer still,

with lowered eyes, whisper among themselves,

the breath of roses never forgotten.

For those who scope upon them in subways and hotels,

where they change our bedding, serve us food,

or in our homes where they cut our lawns,

see only the utility of forms, blind to the stamina of roses.

See the black demon of empty words

run back into its hole down the hill,

by the cathedral facing the northern shore

limned with corpses, guns, death by alcohol,

drugs, rape, forced servitude and prostitution,

where the churches are full of the armies of the dead

who cannot inhale the sweet breath of roses.

See the beauty of the bud, glow with life interior,

yet, there are those who seek to disturb

the peaceful minds of others, whose envy

fails to penetrate, their longing still unheard──

to become the lord's of unspeakable things,

everything that's ever wished for, won,

except for those heart-minds, like tilmas worn,

blanketed in the multi-colored flame of roses.

                                                            Karen Morris─

                                                            Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe,

                                                            Basilica of the National Shrine, Washington, DC

                                                            November 10, 2013

Castilian Rose

Day Four ~ Intercessions During the Guadalupe Countdown

The Lady of Guadalupe is the patroness of the Americas: North, Central and South./ We pray for this part of the world/ asking for the conversion of hearts where persons suffer indignities and injustice./ We pray to the Lord.

The Lady of Guadalupe called Juan Diego the littlest of her sons./ We pray to remember that each human person is God's child/ and to love people with the mind of Christ./ We pray to the Lord.

Juan Diego delayed meeting the Lady for their second appointment because his uncle, Juan Bernadino, was dying./ We pray for persons who care for others in frailty or suffering-need./ We pray to the Lord.

While the Lady asked for a chapel to be built on the top of Tepeyac, we ask God all the more to change us into living stones that build up the Church to God's Glory/ and the love of our neighbor./ We pray to the Lord.

When the Lady appeared to Juan Diego/ she stood barefoot on the ground./ We ask for the virtue of humility/ by which we might see ourselves truthfully,/ in our vulnerability and powerlessness./ We pray to the Lord.

On Juan Diego's tilma/ the Lady stands in the posture of prayer./ In the dark time of the year/ we pray to be enlightened/ that we might pray more deeply and from the heart./ We pray to the Lord.

We entrust the sick,/ the friendless and the needy to the Guadalupe's care,/ and pray that those who have died may experience the most tender mercy of Jesus/ who pardons, heals and makes whole./ We pray to the Lord.

Day Three ~ Guadalupe Novena Countdown ~ Juan Diego and the Bishop

THE EDITORIAL OF THE NOVEMBER 16, 2013 issue of The Tablet, the newspaper of the Brooklyn Diocese, reflected upon what's being called The Francis Effect: the impact the new pope is having on people around the world. It seems that while the pope is warmly received in so many circles, some are criticizing him for a (perceived) desire to revive the spirit of the earliest Church when the community was without evolved hierarchical structures. 

The editorial cites Vittorio Messori, who wrote in Milan's daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera that, "Historically, charismatic movements which refused to change into hierarchical structures were swiftly reduced to irrelevance." I expect  that is so, but we might well consider the converse: that the Church, where the hierarchical structures are overstated, runs the risk of forgetting and losing the charisms (spiritual gifts and qualities) of the founder. This sad fact is played out repeatedly throughout the history of the Church. Pope John Paul II recognized this and was unafraid to declare it while in the year 2000 he repeatedly apologized before the world for the historical sins of the Church. Some high ranking prelates thought he was mistaken in doing this. 

Pope Francis understands. He says that the Church can lose the fragrance of the gospel. I wonder if there are many Catholics who even understand what that might mean. He has instructed bishops to change course in emphasis and style. In the same issue of The Tablet, Cardinal Dolan reflected on a meeting he recently had with Pope Francis. Cardinal Dolan said of the pope: "He made a special point of saying that he wants pastoral bishops, not bishops who profess or follow a particular ideology." This pope often calls for the end of clericalism (when a priest thinks the rules that apply to everyone else don't apply to him) and for the clergy to get out of their churches to be with people and serve them where they are.

All of this to say, that as the account of Juan Diego and the Lady of Guadalupe unfolds, Juan Diego has to meet a bishop.

It is said that in the age of the European countries establishing colonies around the world, notably in Africa and Central and South America, that the clergy hitched a ride. But from the start there is a problem, as the clergy have associated themselves with the defeating powers. It's hard to convince people of the beauty of Jesus when you arrive with colonizing disease bearers, thieves, exploiters, abusers, cultural destroyers.

In the Guadalupe account we notice that the Lady didn't reveal herself to the Spanish Governor nor to Bishop Zumarraga, but to Juan Diego who was effectively on the bottom of the pile. Juan Diego was of no consequence in the culture of the day. He's wasn't a slave and he wasn't in the army, but the story tells us that he still had to show up for roll call. And so the first thing the Lady accomplished in speaking his language, in conversing with him while standing barefoot on the ground, in resembling his people, was to  give him his dignity back. She made him her viceroy!

And as is true in almost all the accounts of Marian Apparitions throughout history, the seer (the see-er) is disbelieved. But seers are almost always children or poor - or poor children. Indeed, Juan Diego is worse than disbelieved, he is reviled. The language coming out of the Bishop's household regarding Juan Diego is telling: They held him in suspicion. They observed and spied on him. They became disgusted and angered with him. They said Juan Diego was a deceiver, a fake, a dreamer, a liar. They schemed, should he return after being sent away, that they would arrest and punish him harshly.

Often the Church simply doesn't share the joy. The pope has said we have become obsessed with certain sexual and morale issues and in doing so something of the essential gospel message is lost. Participating in an international conference in Washington, D.C. recently, in the course of nearly three days, nearly every person with whom I spoke told me some sad story of their having "left the Catholic Church." In one diocese I know of, the word hemorrhaging is used to describe the exiting of Catholics to Evangelical Churches where the transforming Jesus of the Gospels is proclaimed. In the telling of their stories, often it's disclosed that people feel the Catholic Church has simply lost joy.

Pope Benedict XVI said of the Church in the First World that it is exhausted. I wonder at times if our Church hasn't become a kind of an empty shell or an antique, substituting liturgical theater, charade, sentiment, power, religious distraction, lies and talking in the vacuum of specialized and arcane language, as a substitute for the real thing, which is Christ. One priest I know told me years ago that we have lost our Christic-Center.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Waiting after Katrina

Perhaps nothing else reveals the loss of the heavenly or spiritual thrust in the Guadalupe story as this - that repeatedly, Juan Diego is made to wait. The poor always wait. They wait in clinics. They wait for buses. They wait on long lines. They have no letters of recommendation or badges to flash to open access, no names to drop or tips to speed things along for them. They're in no position to bribe their way - no this-for-that negotiating power.

"On arrival, he (Juan Diego) endeavored to see him (the bishop); he pleaded with the servants to announce him; and after a long wait, he was called and advised that the bishop had ordered his admission."  

And again: "On the hour Juan Diego left for the palace of the bishop. Again with much difficulty he was able to see him."

Then, as always happens in the stories of apparitions from heaven, the Church takes charge of the site and the story itself - as if to tame, manage and massage the message. In truth we are told that the bishop fell to his knees before the mystical image on Juan Diego's tilma and shed sorrowful tears for his disbelief and procrastination, but then we read:

"When he rose to his feet, he untied from Juan Diego's neck the cloth on which appeared the image of the Lady from heaven. Then he took it to be placed in his chapel." The tilma didn't belong to him. But the tilma was enshrined and has become the most visited Catholic shrine in the world. But does the presence of the tilma change us? Does it change the Church?

The Guadalupe Account proposes something new for the Church - beginning with the top: a Church that's eager to listen, where no one of us lords it over another, where service is pre-eminent, where the poor are moved up front so the rest of us can help, where the things of heaven give us joy, where suspicion is reduced, where we respect the messages others carry.

And when I suggest that the poor be moved up front I am not speaking of stepping aside so someone can get to the soup kitchen door - I"m talking about the rich countries and the poor countries. Maybe before Christmas we could read Pope Francis' Apostolic Exhortation Evangelli Gaudium where he calls the First World to a new attentiveness and response in these things. For the price of one bomb we could build 34 schools in the poorest parts of the world.

In the mid 1980's, when AIDS was out of control and people were getting sick and dying quickly and in large numbers, the gay community in New York rallied and took even strangers into their homes, people who had lost their families, their jobs, their apartments, their savings - and be-friended and nursed them until they died. When I shared this in a Sunday sermon and suggested that perhaps Catholics had something to learn from that community, the only ones who objected were the  pious never-miss-Mass folks. It's confounding how a religious person can appear to have so much insight and truth and underneath have so little.

Bishop Zumarraga was chaplain to the Empire's Governor. There was a lot of power and prominence built into that relationship. Yet it was Juan Diego (the littlest one) who carried the message and the picture from heaven. That's pure Gospel!