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Charity, Unity Fraternity and Patriotism In Light of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Bishop William Lori, Supreme Chaplain Presentation to Marian Congress in Arizona. Charity, Unity, Fraternity and Patriotism in Light of Our Lady of Guadalupe The Marian Dimension of the Four Principles of the Knights of Columbus

Introduction We are gathered together as members of the Knights of Columbus and as Catholics from far and wide, seeking to grow in our knowledge, love, and practice of the Church’s faith. This is what has attracted us to this International Marian Congress dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe and sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. With grateful hearts, we are listening again to the message of Our Lady to Juan Diego on the hill of Tepecyac and far beyond. We are caught up in the drama of that graced moment when Mary, the Star of Evangelization, drew close to this hemisphere to plant the seeds of the Gospel which quickly germinated and took deep root. We are guided in the prayerful study of Our Lady of Guadalupe by the tilma she left behind as a living reminder of her presence among us. As we look upon her, we can see ourselves, our faith, and our cultures more clearly. Through her example and maternal intercession for us at the throne of grace, we recognize who we are and who we are to become in Christ, Truly we rejoice in the nearness of Our Lady of Guadalupe to us. The more we look upon her image, the more we see how she came to affirm and unite diverse languages, customs, and cultures under the banner of her Son, Jesus Christ, in the communion of the Church. Full of grace, she sheds the light of her Son upon us and upon our faith. Moreover, her own sinless discipleship shows us, more clearly than any other, how to respond to God’s love, a love which we encounter as members of the Church and members of the Knights of Columbus. It is therefore no surprise that Our Lady sheds the light of her love in Christ Jesus upon the first principles of the Christian life, indeed, four principles, which are at the heart of our common discipleship and which, at the same time, are the foundation upon which the Knights of Columbus is built. These are four principles are charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism. In the time allotted to me, I wish to reflect with you on how Our Lady of Guadalupe shapes our understanding of these four principles, which, to repeat, are charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism. Looking at Mary’s tilma, bequeathed to Juan Diego, to America, & to the world, let us reflect on how Mary’s role in salvation history and her discipleship shed light, beauty, and joy upon the bedrock principles of our own discipleship as followers of Christ, as members of His Body, the Church, and as members of our beloved Order, the Knights of Columbus. 

Charity: Mother of Divine Love I speak first of Charity. As you know, our Supreme Knight, Carl Anderson, and Msgr. Eduardo Chavez, have written a beautiful book which describes Our Lady of Guadalupe as the Mother of a Civilization of Love. They retold the story of how the Virgin Mother of God appeared to Juan Diego, to entrust to him a message of redeeming love addressed the Western Hemisphere, a message of love which continues to have the power to inspire and transform us. Our Lady stood before the before Juan Diego as the Mother of Mercy, for, as Pope John Paul II reminded us, ‘we always experience God’s love as mercy.’ Our Lady was arrayed in beauty as she drew close to Juan Diego, for she is the Mother of God assumed into heaven, arrayed with the sun and the stars; yet she also remains the lowly Virgin of Nazareth through whom God reached down to touch us with an utterly generous love. In her appearance, her vesture, and her beauty, Mary manifests loving solidarity with the poor and the lowly, with those who have no standing, with those through whom the love of God often shines with such brilliance. She comes as a messenger of Him, “who has lifted up the lowly.” Those who have studied and prayed over the tilma are often drawn to the eyes of the Virgin, so life-like, so penetrating. Her eyes exceed what even the most skillful artist can portray for the eyes of Our Lady convey “the look of love” which we crave (cf. DCE, 18), the look of divine love, conveyed through her sinless heart. As Mary looks upon us and as we look upon her, we can feel how the love of God envelops us, body, mind, and spirit. We sense that Mary came to our hemisphere as the messenger of that love without which our lives make no sense, that love upon which our lives depend. Her presence and maternal love touched the already devout life of Juan Diego, brought healing and new life to his ailing elder, his uncle, Juan Bernardino. The divine Son whom she bore in her womb exalted the humble Juan Diego, raising this lowly man to be the messenger of evangelization, sending him to bring glad tidings to the lowly, first to his Bishop, Juan de Zumárraga, then to the struggling Spanish missionaries, and finally to the whole of the New World. Mary’s maternal love penetrates to the hearts of individual believers in their need but also penetrates the life, the languages, and the cultures of a continent, the continent which our Church calls America, south, central, and north. In her apparition to Juan Diego, Mary is bearing a child, her Son, Jesus. It’s not that He was yet to be born; it’s only that He must be born in us. Mary, the Mother of the Savior, came to give birth to a new people, a people with a new appearance and a new culture, a people formed in the love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, those in whom the seeds of a new civilization of love had been planted. And she stands before us today, a living witness to the unchanging love of God for us.

From the very beginning, the Knights of Columbus, adopted as its first principle the first principle of the Christian life – which is charity. The first meaning of charity is not what we do for others but rather God’s prior love for us, revealed in Christ and communicated by the Spirit, a love made so accessible to us by the maternal love of the Virgin Mary. Our charity – our love of God and neighbor – is a graced response to the God who has loved us first and who has poured his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. We are here at this Marian Congress because the sinless Virgin of Guadalupe will lead us to Christ in the Spirit so that we can grow in God’s love and manifest that love by loving our neighbors as ourselves, indeed, by loving our neighbors as God loves them! As sons and families of the Virgin Mother of Guadalupe, we who are part of the Knights of Columbus offer ourselves in service to others. We seek to emulate the love of Mary which reaches individuals and families in their hour of need a love which, at the same time, has the capacity to change the world around us. That is why we volunteer, neighbor to neighbor, that is why we engage in massive amounts of charitable activity. Like Mary, we are responding to the God who loved us first.Like Mary, we are bearers of the transforming love of Christ.Like Mary, we come with a love capable of not only changing individual hearts but also the countries and cultures which we represent.

Unity: Mother of the Living Let us reflect now on the principle of unity, so evident in the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mary’s gift of unity was not a negotiated peace or the result of compromise. Instead, Our Lady of Guadalupe, by her vesture, her appearance, and her words, set the bloody divisions of 16th century Mexico in sharp relief, only to overcome those divisions by clearing a path toward a unity, a unity which has ‘the Spirit as its origin and peace as its binding force’ (Eph. 4:3). From today’s presentations, you already know it was like in Mexico after 1521,leading up to the Virgin Mary’s appearance to Juan Diego in 1531. One might say that it was indeed “a culture of death”. The Spanish conquistadores treated the indigenous peoples cruelly. They were often enslaved, deprived of property, and forbidden to speak their native languages. Many died by the sword. Was it any wonder that most of the native peoples were not attracted to the faith?The Bishop and the Franciscan missionaries sympathized with the native peoples but found it very difficult to convince them to embrace Christ and his Church in the face of such cruel and de-humanizing behavior. Bishop Zumárraga denounced the cruelty of the conquistadores, Many of them stopped going to Mass; some tried to have the bishop removed and even killed. At the same time, the native culture of the Aztec Empire, as it is sometimes known, was richly complex and in many ways very advanced, though also terribly cruel and dehumanizing. Think of the terrible practice of human sacrifice which Msgr. Chavez has described, a cruel cult carried out to placate an idol, so as to maintain sun and sustenance. Within this culture, there were also inter-tribal prejudices, enslavement, and other forms of cruelty. Our Lady of Guadalupe, carrying the Child of her womb, appears to Juan Diego. Into this culture of death, Mary brings Christ, the author of life, ‘Who reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling’ (GS, 22). In a certain sense, she bears within herself ‘the truth about the human person’ and the inviolable dignity of each human being, created in God’s image. Bearing within herself he who is God from God and light from light, her face, her clothes, her language illuminates what reason more dimly perceives, viz., the dignity of the human person from conception until natural death. This is the common humanity that we share and the basis for a just social order. Mary comes to Juan Diego speaking words of love and encouragement in a forbidden language, yet bearing roses that spoke of other places & cultures. Her complexion is that of a new race of people that had only begun to emerge, the “mestiza”, encompassing both Spanish and native Indian features. Overshadowed by the Spirit of love, she brings us Christ who unites in himself what sin, strife, and human ignorance has divided.

Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have urged the Church in America, North, Central, and South – to perceive its “Marian soul”, and thus to unite in proclaiming the dignity of the human person, as the bedrock basis for justice and peace, and for the common good, a truth that is also bedrock in proclaiming and spreading the Catholic faith. Mary, who always leads us to Christ, still calls us to build a culture of life where the dignity and common humanity of each person is recognized, respected, and fostered. We are called to defend the sanctity of life, first & foremost to defend the unborn, to defend the frail elderly, to defend family life, to stand up for religious liberty, to oppose inhumane immigration policies. In short, we are to work “in service to one, in service to all”. As Knights of Columbus we are united by our faith and our common mission. We comprise over 1.7 million men and their families across diverse cultures. We speak English, French, Spanish, Tagalog, and Polish, yet we are united in our faith and in the vision of Father Michael McGivney. In our charitable activity and in our advocacy, we seek to defend innocent human life, to strengthen the family, to bring ethics to the workplace, to assist those who are in need – out of keen sense of our common humanity confirmed by our faith in Christ and nurtured by our devotion to the Virgin Mary. And in our world-wide activities, we seek to be a force for unity, to break down the barriers which sin has created – barriers of race, language, and prejudice – barriers that are created when the strong and powerful dominate the weak and defenseless.

Fraternity: Brotherhood I speak now of fraternity, or brotherhood. For it is not enough to perceive a common humanity or simply to know what binds us together as a human family. We need a web of human relationships, especially family relationships, friends, fellow citizens, and people who espouse the fundamental truth about the human person. For this reason, many groups, including fraternal societies, came into existence, but none is so clearly based on the Christian meaning of brotherhood than the Knights of Columbus. For Christian brotherhood is something even greater than blood brotherhood or any other kind of human relationship. It is based on faith in Jesus Christ, God’s own Son in the flesh, who revealed the Father and his love for the sake of our redemption. In 1960, a young Father Joseph Ratzinger, wrote: “Christian brotherhood is ultimately founded on the faith that gives us assurance of our real son-ship in relation to the heavenly Father.” In the course of this Marian Congress you have already heard how Our Lady of Guadalupe introduced true fraternity, true brotherhood, throughout America, North, Central, and South. Prior to her appearance, the Christian faith had made virtually no progress. It was blocked by human cruelty which stood as an evil sign of contradiction. After Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared, evangelization blossomed. It is estimated that, within a few years, some 9 million people flocked to Christ and were baptized into the faith of the Church. America, with its “Marian heart”, became “a continent of the baptized.” In baptism we are infused with the new life of the crucified and risen Lord. In all our diversity, we become the Father’s adopted children and thus, brothers and sisters in Jesus who claim the same Mother. Our brotherhood in Christ is not just a noble idea but rather is expressed and strengthened in the celebration of the Eucharist, wherein we share the Body of Christ in order to become the Body of Christ.

It is expressed in our love of God and neighbor and expressed as well in our solidarity with one another, with our fellow Catholics, and with the poor and needy. It is a fraternity that is sustained in good times and in bad, in circumstances of joy, sorrow, and even confusion. Our fraternity, our brotherhood in Christ, is by no means a closed circle but rather includes our bishops and priests, with whom we stand in solidarity, our spouses, family members, and all those who share our Catholic faith. It opens out to those who are searching for the fullness of truth and to people of good will who are seeking to affirm the dignity of the human person and to work for the common good of society. Because our fraternity is rooted in the Lord, the Eternal Son of God who became our brother, and because our fraternity is nurtured by the Virgin Mary, we must therefore be explicit agents of the new evangelization. We are called to bear witness to the Gospel and its transforming love, the seeds of which were planted in this continent by Our Lady of Guadalupe. We are called to be the strong right arm of the Church, the Pope, the bishops, and parish priests in the work of evangelization and in defending Holy Mother Church. Our special concern must be those who are not in the brotherhood of the faith, lapsed Catholics, those who no longer practice their faith, Catholics who have joined other denominations, Catholics who were poorly evangelized and catechized, Catholics who have been harmed by those representing the Church.

We should also be concerned about the many un-churched people who often live in something akin to a spiritual wasteland. As true co-workers, sons and daughters, of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we are to address them in ways that they can understand and grasp, in ways that touch their minds, their hearts, their cultural roots, and thus win them over into the communion of Mary divine Son, a communion of life and love we call the Church!

Patriotism Since our founding, the members of the Knights of Columbus have been patriots. In all the countries where the Knights are active, its members have fought to turn back the rule of modern-day tyrants and terrorists, and to defend human dignity, freedom, and rights. We continue to express our love of country by being active in the political process, by our strong defense of innocent human life and the role of the family, by doing our daily work as well as we can for the sake of our homelands, and by seeking to rid our countries of all that departs from their most sacred values. Through the Fourth Degree of the Order, we highlight the commitment of the Knights of Columbus to love of God and country. Our Order was born in a period of intense, even overt bigotry against the Catholic Church, a bigotry that persists in various forms today, at the least is some parts of these United States. Nonetheless, we are persistent in our patriotism not because we imagine our respective countries and the cultures they embody, to be perfect – but because we are confident that God’s truth and love, working through us and our fellow citizens can help mend our native lands, prompting the lands we call home to live up to their founding ideals, to embrace that which is coherent, true, good, and beautiful in our native cultures. Patriotism, my dear friends, is a virtue not for the faint of heart.

Here again, Our Lady of Guadalupe is our guide. In this Marian Congress you have heard detailed descriptions of how Our Lady ingeniously embraced all the cultural elements of 16th century Mexico, including her complexion, her language, her vesture, and much more. Her appearance and the tilma which she left behind have been called “a codex of love” … an encoded message affirming what was right and true and good in the Mexican culture of the day. Mary, as it were, identified for us the human and cultural foundation upon which the edifice of the faith could be built in the New World. Her message, however, was not merely for one time and place. She came among us as an exemplar of how to love one’s country in such a way that its distinctive traits can be incorporated into the Kingdom of God.

She taught us how the presence of Christ, true God and true man, and in his light, she enables us to discern those elements in our culture which accord with human dignity and those which do not, those which help communicate the faith, and those which do not. In so doing, Our Lady of Guadalupe implanted on this continent of America a longing for our true homeland, which is in heaven. As we look toward the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God, toward complete communion with the Triune God and with one another, our longing is not an escape from the world—it tragedies, dilemmas, and problems.

Rather, like our Lady, we seek to cooperate in bringing the communion of God’s own life and love right here to the heart of the earthly city, right here to the confusion, the tragedy, the mischance that always characterize human endeavor and the history we write by our lives.

We look to our true native land with the Triune God, together with Mary and all the saints and angels. The beauty of the new and eternal Jerusalem has been shown us by Daughter Zion, by Mary, the woman arrayed with the sun and the stars. As that beauty takes hold of our souls, then we are equipped to be true patriots, true citizens of the earthly city which we are to transform into a true civilization of love. The Virgin of Guadalupe did not come to create an earthly utopia but she did plant the seeds of a culture in which human life and dignity is respected, in which caring for one another and the needs of others is the norm, and in which peace and justice is consistently sought.

Conclusion To conclude with the stirring words of our Supreme Knight and Msgr. Chavez: “From Canada to Argentina, all of us who live in the Americas are called, like Juan Diego, to bridge the divides of cultures, religion, and factions of any kind, by presenting to all the message of Our Lady . . . the message of the mother of a civilization of love.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us! Vivat Jesus!