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Saint Juan Diego Feast Day Humility is a virtue we need to relate to those we love. We need it to be forgiving. We need it to accept being forgiven. We need it to admit that we don't have all the answers when it comes to someone else's life and how they should live it. We need it to be able to give those we love back to God and admit that He alone can soften another's heart. We need humility to pray effectively. |
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Who is Juan Diego? This saint was a member of the macehualli, the lowest and largest class in the Aztec Empire. He tells Our Lady he is "a nobody." He walked every Saturday and Sunday many miles to church, for Mass and religious instruction. classes. He wore a coarse-woven cactus cloak- a tilma- made with fibers from the maguey cactus. He met Our Lady during one of those walks. The Blessed Virgin Mary talked to him in his language, Nahuatl. She called him "Juanito, Juan Dieguito" , "the most humble of my sons". Juan Diego deeply loved the Holy Eucharist, and by special permission of the Bishop he received Holy Communion three times a week, a highly unusual occurrence in those times. When the bishop asked for a sign from the Lady, she arranged roses in his Tilma. When he unrolled his cloak to reveal the roses, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was present on the Tilma. That garment, that should have lasted only 50 years, hangs in the shrine in Mexico City today--500 years later.
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Comments of
John Paul II Pope John Paul II praised Juan Diego for his simple faith and pictured him as a model of humility for all of us. “In this new saint you have a marvelous example of a just and upright man, a loyal son of the Church, docile to his Pastors, who deeply loved the Virgin and was a faithful disciple of Jesus. May he be a model for you." Prayer to St Juan Diego You who were chosen by Our Lady of Guadalupe as an instrument to show your people and the world that the way of Christianity is one of love, compassion, understanding, values, sacrifices, repentance of our sins, appreciation and respect for God's creation, and most of all one of humility and obedience. stay with us as we struggle in this modern life not knowing most of the time where to set our priorities. Help us use our gifts for the good of humanity and the good of our Church, through the Heart of Our Lady of Guadalupe to the Heart of Jesus. Amen.
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