You may have gotten up this sleepy, cold Friday morning and headed to work or the doctor or shopping or the gym not even realizing that for millions of people this is one of the most important days of the year!!!
December 12 is the Feast Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, probably the most well-known and widely celebrated of all the ‘Mary’s.’ Yes, she is the patron saint of Mexico, our next door neighbor, but she is so much more. She has become the patron of people of color the world over. Everywhere you go in Mexico, you see her. And she is revered by all, even those with no ties to the Catholic Church. She has become a universal symbol of the universal love of God.
While the Catholic Church was busy colonizing Mexico and imposing their religion on the indigenous people, the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared several times to a mere peasant, Juan Diego. Finally, the Bishop accepted Juan Diego’s stories of the appearances of the Virgin of Guadalupe and built her a church on the site she selected. And Mexico got a brown, indigenous looking Mary who appeared to an indigenous peasant. The white Euro Americans no longer controlled the church in Mexico. And the Mexicans got a goddess figure in their new religion that connected them to their indigenous goddesses.
In the Magnificat, Mary sings of lifting the lowly. The Virgin of Guadalupe has lifted up the indigenous people of Mexico generating respect for them as people and for their indigenous traditions which are life-giving and honor the sacred earth.
Today, do something to honor the Virgin of Guadalupe – light a candle, eat a burrito. And celebrate the lifting up of the lowly.
Prayer: May we allow our faith and our lives to be enriched by the traditions of peoples and cultures that are different than our own. God is so much bigger than one ethnicity or color or religion. Amen.
This devotion was prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL.
Lakewood United Church of Christ 