NO ESTOY YO AQUÍ QUE SOY TU MADRE?

This week upcoming is bracketed with two festivals in honor of the Blessed Mother: the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception this past Thursday, and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe this coming Monday. At first glance they seem perhaps to be very disparate in their focus, but I think there is a great coherence to these two celebrations.
The Blessed Mother, under the title of Immaculate Conception, is in fact the patron of the United States’ Catholic Church, and she is the specific primary patron of the Archdiocese of Mobile and its Cathedral. On the other hand, the Lady of Tepeyac is patroness of ALL the Americas, including the United States.
The National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC will host a tremendous celebration this Monday; many other places in the country will in fact far exceed this in numbers on Friday, to honor the miracle of the December roses. For example, the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines will be inundated—in the best possible sense of that word—with upwards of ¾ million (!) pilgrims who will spend the night in prayer and praise of God. This, to say nothing of the celebrations that will take place also in other parts of the country, in Texas and in California, most especially. Why is this?
The title of this essay gives a clue: “Am I not here? Am I not your mother?” Who does not long for a heavenly mother??
Though our sister-parish is named for St Francis of Assisi, yet it is only about 50 miles from Mexico City and the tremendous shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe (a new basilica because foundations of the original one were discovered to be unstable and dangerous). It’s a shorter distance than that from Nazareth to Bethlehem that our Lady once traveled (Luke 2:1-7). Could we walk it? Surely, in 2 days. Will our brothers and sisters from San Francisco de Asis make the journey? Probably, at least some of them…
Why is she “our Mother”? We have only to turn to John 19:25-26 and realize that the “Beloved Disciple” is also a symbolic representation of all of us believers, and so Jesus Himself, as He hung dying on the cross, gave her to us, too, as Mother.
What is the best way of honoring a mother? Surely it is by honoring her Son—by translating His message of reconciliation, of love, of forgiveness into action in our lives. Advent is a time of recollection of who and what we are (and who and what we are not)—it is a time in which we can make a new choice to be people of metanoia, of conversion of heart and body. We pretty well know what we are being called from; but what really are we being called to? The daily Mass’ 1^st readings give a strong clue (read: requirement!)—we are called also to be “messianic”: to be a light to the nations, salt for the earth and leaven for the flour. Are we ready? God knows the world needs us…