Reflection for Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

"Mary, because she believed, loved; she is the handmaid of the Lord and the servant of her brothers. Celebrating the memory of Mary is to celebrate that we, like her, are invited to go out and meet others with the same gaze, with the same mercy within, with their same gestures. To contemplate her is to feel the strong invitation to imitate her faith. Her presence leads us to reconciliation, giving us the strength to create bonds in our blessed Latin American land, saying “yes” to life and “no” to all kinds of indifference, exclusion, or the rejection of peoples and persons. Let us not be afraid to go out and look upon others with the same gaze. A gaze that makes us brothers. We do so because, like Juan Diego, we know that here is our mother, we know that we are under her shadow and her protection, which is the source of our joy, and that we are in the cross of her arms."

--Pope Francis, Homily, December 12, 2016