NINE-MONTH NOVENA
September 25th – Fourteenth Reflection from Cardinal Raymond Burke
Although the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe occurred nearly 500 years ago, Our Lord still desires that we continue coming to Our Lady of Guadalupe because He desires to speak to us through her as Mother of Divine Grace.
The situation today is no less urgent than it was at the time of the first apparitions. Our culture is plummeting at an alarming rate into self-annihilation. The situation in our own country is very frightening as the attacks on human life and on the family grow ever more violent and our society is unstable because we have lost our moorings. In other parts of the world, there are terrible conflicts, as there were during the time of Our Lady’s apparitions. We realize that Our Lady’s message is as critical today as it was then.
At the same time, Our Lady’s remedy for the crisis of that time remains our own remedy today. She instructed that a “sacred little house”—that is, a chapel—be built and, knowing that it would be accomplished through Divine Providence, she prepared for her miraculous image on the Tilma of Saint Juan Diego to be set in a place of prominence inside the chapel so that she might draw all who gaze upon that image to her Divine Son. The description of the hanging of the Tilma in her chapel deserves to be recounted.
And after some time, the Reverend Bishop moved the beloved Image of the Heavenly Maiden to the main church. He [the Bishop] took it from his palace, from his chapel where it had been, so that everyone could see and admire Her precious Image. And absolutely everyone, the entire city, without exception, trembled when they went to behold, to admire Her precious Image. They came to acknowledge it as something divine. They came to offer Her their prayers. They marveled at the miraculous way it had appeared since absolutely no one on Earth had painted Her beloved Image. (Nican Mopohua, no. 212-218)
Our Lady is calling us to be her messengers today, just as she called Saint Juan Diego to be her heroic messenger 500 years ago. And just as the people were awestruck then, so too must people today tremble when they behold and admire her precious image. People must come to offer her their prayers. People need to marvel at the miraculous way her image appeared on the Tilma! We can help them do so through the union of our hearts with the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Build a sacred little house in your heart. Contemplate her maternal gaze. Let her summon you on pilgrimage to a holy place where you will truly encounter her Divine Son in the Sacraments of Penance and Eucharist. Your example of living a holy life by supernatural grace will naturally lead others to Our Lady, who will draw them to the only source of their salvation in Jesus Christ, truly present in their midst.
I invite you to make a pilgrimage to the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe at La Crosse, Wisconsin, where you can see her sacred image—a magnificent mosaic of the miraculous image on the Tilma created by Vatican Mosaic artists—which draws the attention of pilgrims to the altar of sacrifice on which Our Lord makes present His sacrifice and to the tabernacle in which He remains for us as the Bread from Heaven. The crucifix which hangs above the altar of sacrifice, with the image of Our Lady as its background, reminds us that God the Son became incarnate in the Virgin Mary’s womb, in order to offer His life for us on Calvary and to make that Sacrifice ever present for us, until He returns in glory at the end of time. The Virgin of Guadalupe accomplishes her mission in her “sacred little house” in which her Divine Son dwells in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
You can see this image for yourself by making a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12, the final day of the consecration. On the Solemnity of Our Lady of Guadalupe, during the Holy Mass at 12:15 pm Central Time, I will be making the Official Act of Consecration to her with the Nine-Month Novena Prayer. I hope you can come on pilgrimage to the Shrine and make your consecration with me. The Shrine has been approved by the Vatican to be an official place of pilgrimage by affiliating the Shrine with the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome and with the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Because of this affiliation, when you make your pilgrimage, you receive the same graces and blessings as if you had gone to Rome or Mexico on pilgrimage to those Basilicas.
Until that time, I encourage you to watch the video reflection for this month and then please join me in praying the Official Novena Prayer.
Let us pray
O Virgin Mother of God, we fly to your protection and beg your intercession against the darkness and sin which ever more envelop the world and menace the Church. Your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, gave you to us as our mother as He died on the Cross for our salvation. So too, in 1531, when darkness and sin beset us, He sent you, as Our Lady of Guadalupe, on Tepeyac to lead us to Him Who alone is our light and our salvation.
Through your apparitions on Tepeyac and your abiding presence with us on the miraculous mantle of your messenger, Saint Juan Diego, millions of souls converted to faith in your Divine Son. Through this novena and our consecration to you, we humbly implore your intercession for our daily conversion of life to Him and the conversion of millions more who do not yet believe in Him. In our homes and in our nation, lead us to Him Who alone wins the victory over sin and darkness in us and in the world.
Unite our hearts to your Immaculate Heart so that they may find their true and lasting home in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Ever guide us along the pilgrimage of life to our eternal home with Him. So may our hearts, one with yours, always trust in God’s promise of salvation, in His never-failing mercy toward all who turn to Him with a humble and contrite heart. Through this novena and our consecration to you, O Virgin of Guadalupe, lead all souls in America and throughout the world to your Divine Son in Whose name we pray. Amen.
September 12th – Thirteenth Reflection from Cardinal Raymond Burke
When Our Lady provided Saint Juan Diego with the sign which the Bishop requested, she insisted on the importance of the chapel as the locus of the manifestation of God’s all-merciful love:
“My youngest son, these different kinds of flowers are the proof, the sign that you will take to the Bishop; you will tell him from me that in them he is to see my wish and that therefore he is to carry out my wish, my will; and you, you who are my messenger, in you I place my absolute trust. And I strictly order you that only alone, in the Bishop’s presence, will you open your tilma and show him what you are carrying; and you will tell him everything exactly, you will tell him that I ordered you to climb to the top of the little hill to cut the flowers, and everything you saw and admired; so that you can convince the Governing Priest, so that he will then do what is entrusted to him, to build my little sacred house that I have asked for.” (Nican Mopohua, no. 137-142)
In fact, from the time of the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the enshrinement of her miraculous image in the successions of chapels and churches built near Tepeyac Hill, the devotion to Our Lady has favoured a profound and rich life of prayer and divine worship.
In the end, everything regarding the apparitions is directed to the establishment of the chapel as a place of pilgrimage, of a privileged encounter with the Lord through the mediation of His Virgin Mother.
The presentation of the sign to Bishop Juan de Zumárraga is remarkable:
And then he opened his white tilma, in the follow of which were the flowers. And all the different flowers, like those from Castille, fell to the floor. Then and there his tilma became the sign, there suddenly appeared the Beloved Image of the Perfect Virgin Saint Mary, Mother of God, in the form and figure in which it is now, where it is preserved her beloved little house, in her sacred little house in Tepeyac, which is called Guadalupe… And the Bishop got up, and untied Juan Diego’s garment, his tilma, from his neck where it was tied, on which appeared the venerable sign of the Heavenly Queen. And then he took it and placed it in his private chapel. And Juan Diego still stayed for the day in the Bishop’s house, who still kept him there. And on the next day he [the Bishop] said to him: “Come, let’s go so you can show me where it is that the venerable will of the Queen of Heaven wants Her chapel built.” Nican Mopohua, no. 137-142
If we are to be messengers of Our Lady, our hearts must be in union with her Immaculate Heart. Let us, therefore, build a “sacred little house” to Our Lady of Guadalupe in our hearts, setting a spiritual Tilma in a place wherefrom, under the interior contemplation of her maternal gaze, she can prepare our hearts to make a pilgrimage to a holy place, where we can truly encounter her Divine Son, Jesus Christ, come to know Him more fully and to love Him more ardently, especially in the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist.
Let us pray
O Virgin Mother of God, we fly to your protection and beg your intercession against the darkness and sin which ever more envelop the world and menace the Church. Your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, gave you to us as our mother as He died on the Cross for our salvation. So too, in 1531, when darkness and sin beset us, He sent you, as Our Lady of Guadalupe, on Tepeyac to lead us to Him Who alone is our light and our salvation.
Through your apparitions on Tepeyac and your abiding presence with us on the miraculous mantle of your messenger, Saint Juan Diego, millions of souls converted to faith in your Divine Son. Through this novena and our consecration to you, we humbly implore your intercession for our daily conversion of life to Him and the conversion of millions more who do not yet believe in Him. In our homes and in our nation, lead us to Him Who alone wins the victory over sin and darkness in us and in the world.
Unite our hearts to your Immaculate Heart so that they may find their true and lasting home in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Ever guide us along the pilgrimage of life to our eternal home with Him. So may our hearts, one with yours, always trust in God’s promise of salvation, in His never-failing mercy toward all who turn to Him with a humble and contrite heart. Through this novena and our consecration to you, O Virgin of Guadalupe, lead all souls in America and throughout the world to your Divine Son in Whose name we pray. Amen.
