Mary and the new evangelization

Those who travel I-35 on the south side of Oklahoma City these days likely will catch a glimpse of the large church under construction as they pass 89th street. It is the site of the future Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine, which is rapidly taking shape. 

Those who drive along Shields Boulevard on the western side of the construction site will be struck by the large hill with a spiral path circling the mound to its summit. To curious passers-by, the earthen mound has attracted nearly as much attention as the large church. The Tepeyac Hill is a key feature of the shrine campus and will become a place of pilgrimage attracting the faithful year-round, but especially on Dec. 12 when the Church observes the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

In December 1531, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to an Indigenous layman, Saint Juan Diego, and entrusted to him the mission to bring her message to the first bishop of the Americas, Bishop Juan Zumarraga of Mexico. 

Through Juan Diego, Mary asked that a church be built on Tepayac Hill, the place where she had appeared to this humble man. When the wise bishop requested a sign to authenticate this extraordinary request from such an unlikely messenger, Mary responded not only by making roses bloom in December on a rocky hillside, but by miraculously imprinting her own image on the tilma (cloak) that Juan Diego used to carry these roses back to the bishop. 

The miraculous image of Mary, who bore the mestizo features of the local people – as well as the remarkable symbols contained in the image itself – became the model for a perfectly enculturated preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in this land, so recently “discovered” by Europeans. 

What followed was the most extraordinary flowering of evangelization in the Church’s long history. In Christian history the evangelization of nations often has followed upon the conversion of their kings and rulers. This chapter had more humble beginnings involving the obedient response of a poor layman to Mary’s request on behalf of her Son that a chapel be built on that site. 

With the bishop’s approval, the chapel was built, and the image was placed there for all to see. When simple people saw the miraculous image of Mary who looked so much like them with her mestizo complexion, they were converted by the experience of God’s love for them communicated through the tender and compassionate face of the Virgin, who is pregnant with her divine Son. Within a few short years, millions of conversions and baptisms followed. 

This event on Tepeyac Hill was the dramatic impulse for the first evangelization of our American continent. Her presence can be felt palpably in that sacred place, made holy by her visitation in 1531, and where her miraculous image continues to be venerated today. Mary’s presence among the Apostles at Pentecost when the Church and its evangelizing mission were born by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, led Saint John Paul II to describe Mary as the Star of the New Evangelization.

The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 12 as well as her Immaculate Conception on Dec. 8 are two of the principal feasts of this Advent season. They point us to the coming of Christ, the Word made flesh. 

My prayer, entrusted to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Star of the New Evangelization, is for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church in Oklahoma as we journey together along the synodal path of discipleship and mission. 

As with the first evangelization of the Americas, the new evangelization in our time begins with an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. Mary delights in facilitating that encounter. Conversion and mission flows from that encounter with divine grace and mercy and, without such an encounter, all our efforts are in vain.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Star of the New Evangelization, pray for us!