As we continue our journey through Advent, the feast days continually celebrate great Saints who exemplify what it means for Christ to be born in our hearts. Today’s Saint, Juan Diego, was the man chosen by Mary to bring her message to the people of Mexico. What was it about this man that made her choose him? He wasn’t rich, not particularly influential, and protested when she asked him. He believed himself too insignificant to carry this message to the Bishop. “I am a nobody, I am a small rope, a tiny ladder, the tail end, a leaf,” he said.
She said to him: “yes, you are the least of my children, and that is precisely why you are being chosen.” Our Lady was intimately familiar with the virtue of humility, and she saw it in Juan Diego. “Juanito, Juan Dieguito, the most humble of my sons….” God longs to find humility in our hearts. He finds it beautiful. Irresistible. The virtue on which all other virtues hinge.
In choosing the lowly Juan Diego, Our Lady followed a long line of stories in Scripture where God chooses the common, the barren, the tongue-tied, the meek, to do his work. God sends the powerless to confront the powerful. God uses the meek to confound the proud.
God isn’t interested in our skillset; He will supply everything we need. He is interested in a heart open to being led by His Spirit. Juan Diego listened to our blessed Mother, and his obedience changed the world. Will we be humble enough to do the same? Will we entrust our hearts and our lives to Jesus through Her?
To close, I want to share with you the prayer that Saint John Paul the II said during the canonization of Saint Juan Diego:
Beloved Juan Diego, “the talking eagle”! Show us the way that leads to the “Dark Virgin” of Tepeyac, that she may receive us in the depths of her heart, for she is the loving, compassionate Mother who guides us to the true God. Amen.
A reflection on the readings for the memorial of Saint Juan Diego: December 9th, 2021