Queen of all America

The Catholic Thing

By Stephen P. White.
But first a note: Be sure to tune in tonight - Thursday, December 12th at 8 PM Eastern - to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, the Vatican's "Palestinian" Nativity scene, Nancy Pelosi's chiding of the pope over his China policy, as well as other developments in the Universal Church. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel.
Now for today's column...
The earliest history of the Catholic Church in the United States is decidedly Marian. The first recorded Mass in what is now the United States proper was celebrated at present-day St. Augustine, Florida in 1565. The date was September 8: the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. The English-speaking colonies would have to wait almost seven decades for their first Mass, which was celebrated in what is now Maryland, in the year 1634. The date was March 25: the Feast of the Annunciation.
Of course, the history of Catholicism in the New World goes back even farther. We know Christopher Columbus brought several priests with him on his second voyage, and the first recorded Mass in the New World was celebrated in 1494, on the Feast of Epiphany, in what is today the Dominican Republic. (Consider that the first Mass in the New World was celebrated less than 100 years after the death of Geoffrey Chaucer.)
Epiphany, the Annunciation, the Nativity of Mary - Our Lady was decidedly present for each occasion. It shouldn't surprise us that, everywhere the Church goes, everywhere the Gospel is proclaimed, everywhere the Mass is celebrated, there is the Mother of God, pointing the way to her Son. Which brings us to the feast we celebrate today, The Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
In 1531, Our Lady appeared to the Nahua peasant, Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, on the hill of Tepeyac. Juan Diego had been born near the Aztec capital and lived half his life in that pre-Columbian world. He was nearing fifty when the conquistadores arrived, and Hernán Cortés and his little army turned the Mesoamerican world upside down. Juan Diego spoke no Spanish, though he was an early convert to Christianity and took a Spanish name at his Baptism. It was through this humble man that Our Lady would make her most indelible mark on the New World.
It is typical of Our Lady that the story of Guadalupe would be so simple and accessible that even a young child can understand it: the peasant Juan Diego, the beautiful lady, the understandably skeptical bishop, the tilma, the miraculous image. (I first heard the story of Guadalupe from my parents, who would read to me Tomie dePaola's beautiful book, The Lady of Guadalupe. What a treasure that book was and is!) And it is typical of Our Lady that, beneath the simple surface of her story, one finds profound depths, which invite constant reflection.
Mary humanizes the great mystery of the Incarnation. That's so literally true I'm not even sure it qualifies as a pun. It is one thing to say God became man, that He was born, that He died or even that He rose again. It is something altogether more human to say Jesus had a mother. Perhaps this is because, like most people, I have no memory of my own conception, or of being born, nor have I yet experienced death, let alone rising from the dead. But I do have a mother, and so does the Incarnate Word.
In 1999, Pope John Paul II visited the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe during an apostolic trip that took him to Mexico and the United States. On that occasion, he reflected (as he so often did) on the Incarnation and God's intervention in history, "By becoming man, God in a certain way has entered our time and has transformed our history into the history of salvation. A history that includes all the vicissitudes of the world and of mankind, from c...