Did you know that Pope St. John Paul II consistently made a connection between Our Lady of Guadalupe and another theme that he loved… the launching a new evangelization in the 21st century?
The background to understand this connection is not hard to trace.
A) this great, sainted pope drew closer and closer to the Blessed Virgin Mary through his life. A s boy he intuited her great adoptive care when he lost his own mother. As a seminarian he discovered the spiritual of St. Louis Marie De Montfort in True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. As pope, his motto was “Mary, totally yours.” So it was impossible for him not to have a great love for Our Lady in the manner she appeared in 1531 on Tepeyac Hill in Mexico.
B) Doing his seminary studies in the middle of the turmoils of the second world war we know he had a great appreciation for the vast perspective of historical movements. He was ever the philosopher who knew how ideas can have consequences in the span of centuries. He even though in terms of millennia, wrapping up the 2nd Millenium of the Church, and launching the 3rd. And if you know about Guadalupe, you know our Lady’s presence there has almost reached five full centuries of evangelizing influence.
C) He loved to travel the world as the Vicar of Christ, and… as we hinted above, who wouldn’t like to go to Mexico City and see our Lady of Guadalupe as much as possible?
Yes. The elements like these help make sense of his consistent references to a new evangelization and his frequent occasions of connecting that evangelization with our Lady of Guadalupe. So here now just to share some citations and one article.
The first sermon or public address in which he spoke about the Church evangelizing in a “new way” or a “new context” was in Mexico. Before “new evangelization” was a phrase in common use JPII very early exhorted the Church in Mexico: “The future is in God’s hands. But somehow God is also placing the future of a new evangelization impetus in your hands.” (PUEBLA AND BEYOND, (Orbis Books, Maryknoll NY (c) 1979) Electronic Copyright 1999 EWTN)
But within 11 years the “New Evangelization” as an idea and goal became the entire framework of his 1990 visit to Mexico. Visit to Mexico 90: The New Evangelization | EWTN. There he gave a fine and eloquent description of the good news we spread: “To evangelize means to announce the Good News. And the Good News which the Christian communicates to the world is that God, who alone is Lord, is merciful towards all his creatures, loves man with limitless love and has sought to intervene personally in his history by means of his Son Jesus Christ, who died and rose for us, to free us from sin and from all its consequences and to make us sharers in his divine life.”
And last of all, I will share one article that bears out this connection we have just tried to summarize.
“As we undertake the work of the new evangelization, we are called to imitate the love of Our Lady of Guadalupe. There are, in particular, three elements of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe at the heart of her prophetic witness to the modern world: respect for the poor, commitment to the dignity of life, and evangelization through the power of beauty.”
Our Lady of Guadalupe – Star of the New Evangelization
With John Paul II this is the project for the next 500 years of the Church, and another 500 for good measure all through the new millennium!
