St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊

Isaiah 40:25-31

To whom, then, will you liken me or make me equal?

Says the Holy One.  Lift up your eyes and see: who has created all this? He has ordered them as a starry host  and called them each by name. So mighty is his power, so great his strength, that not one of them is missing.  How can you say, O Jacob, how can you complain, O Israel, that your destiny is hidden from me, that your rights are ignored by Yahweh?

 Have you not known, have you not heard that Yahweh is an everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth? He does not grow tired or weary, his knowledge is without limit.  He gives strength to the enfeebled, he gives vigor to the wearied.

 Youth may grow tired and faint, young men will stumble and fall,  but those who hope in Yahweh will renew their strength. They will soar as with eagle’s wings; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and never tire.

 

Ps 103:1-2, 3-4, 8 & 10

O bless the Lord, my soul!

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊

Matthew 11:28-30

Come to me, all you who work hard and who carry heavy burdens and I will refresh you.   Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart; and you will find rest.  For my yoke is good and my burden is light.”

 

Gospel Reflection：

Who wonderful that on the day after we recognize the role of Mary in the Divine Drama of salvation we honor a simple saint, St. Juan Diego! We know him as the one to whom our Lady of Guadalupe appeared in 1531 to reveal her desire for a chapel on the hill of Tepeyak in her honor.

St. Juan Diego asked the Lady to tell who she was and she responded “I am the one who crushes the head of the serpent!” When the Lady of Guadalupe appeared to St.

Juan Diego there was at that time great bloodshed in the land as the Aztecs were offering infants in sacrifice to the their pagan gods, to the devil! The Virgin Mother, appeared as a “pregnant”madonna” to reveal the sacredness of the life in the womb of mothers.

She came to reveal her love for infants in the wombs of mothers! The native Aztecs were also victims of much injustice at that time. So our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to reveal to them that she was also their Mother.

She was inviting them as she invites us now in our own time of great needs as she says, with her Son Jesus, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”