BAGUIA
Today, our world is in need of so much healing. Our societies and many relationships are suffering fragmentation.
Cebuanos celebrate today the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The title refers to the 16th century Marian apparitions in Mexico to Saint Juan Diego, a native and to his uncle.
The Blessed Virgin had requested Saint Juan to tell the bishop to have a shrine built on top of the hill of Tepeyac, where she appeared.
The bishop was skeptical and requested for a sign.
The Virgin promised a sign at an appointed time.
But Saint Juan did not make to the appointment after his uncle was taken ill and he had to look for a priest to give him the sacrament of the anointing of the sick.
He took a different path to avoid meeting the Virgin Mother but she nevertheless again appeared, assuring him that his uncle was already healed and that if he went to the hilltop, Saint Juan would find the sign the bishop wanted.
Saint Juan found Castilian roses.
They were not native to Mexico.
He wrapped them in his cloak or tilma and when to the bishop.
When he opened the tilma, in place of the roses was found an image of the Virgin Mary.
Meanwhile, Saint Juan’s uncle had seen the Virgin, too, who told him to testify to his miraculous healing.
A small chapel was built in honor of the Virgin Mary at the site of her apparitions and a procession was held to move the image there.
During the salutation by the firing of arrows into the air, one native was hit in the neck.
Those around him prayed for the Blessed Mother to intercede with God for the man’s recovery.
When the arrow was pulled out, he fully recovered.
In Cebu, the Holy See under Pope Benedict XVI canonically crowned a different image also called Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Unlike the two dimensional tilma, the image venerated Cebu is a statue.
Some time during the Spanish colonial era, there had been at outbreak of cholera in Cebu. Catholics here ascribe to her miraculous intercession the end of that pestilence.
As in Guadalupe, Mexico where she assured Saint Juan amid his worry over the condition of his uncle (“Am I not here who am your mother?” the Blessed Virgin also showed Cebuanos that they can ask for her to intercede with God so that their most ardent prayers may be heard.
Today, our world is in need of so much healing.
Our societies and many relationships are suffering fragmentation.
In many places, anger has been given free rein, and our planet is showing unmistakable signs of exhaustion.
Young people to whom we look for a future groan with anxiety, worry, and depression.
In these situations, men and women of faith need to echo anew the message of the presence of the Virgin Mary: Am I not here, who am your mother?
These words do not only pledge Mary’s maternal availability and consolations for the sicknesses of our time, they also assure us of the compassion of God for us, God who in Jesus is Son of Mary and who is for all maladies across time and space the only cure, the only healing.
With one voice, let us ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ and our mother, to bring us heaven’s blessings and through God’s mighty power heal our selves and our world.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Guadalupe of Cebu, pray for us!