Am I not here whom am your Mother?

“Hear and let it penetrate into your heart, my dear little son: let nothing discourage you, nothing depress you: let nothing alter your heart or your countenance. Also do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else that you need?” (Words of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Juan Diego)
Saint Juan Diego whom we remember on the day after the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is listed in the Martyrology not as a visionary but as a hermit. Graced with seeing the holy Mother of God in all her radiance, Juan Diego’s vocation unfolded in a life of solitude, ceaseless prayer, and watchfulness.
These words to a priest seem to echo those Our Blessed Mother addressed to her beloved son Juan Diego so many years ago:
“I am ever willing to come quickly to the aid of my poor children. I am every ready to help them them, to lift them when they fall, to bind up their wounds, and even to intervene in such a way as to repair the effects of their wrongdoing.
I am not distant. I hear every prayer addressed to me. My maternal Heart is moved to pity when my children, and especially my priest sons, have recourse to me in their needs. I am the Mother of Mercy, MATER MISERICORDIAE, honoured by the Church in her chant to me. I do turn towards you my eyes of mercy, and I am ever willing to help poor sinners. Let sinners come to me; I will never turn them away. Let them appeal to my Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart; they will never be disappointed.
. . . I ask little of souls and I give much. Such is my way. Such too is the way of my Son. Yes, our Hearts are moved even by the smallest tokens of love, and our response to them surpasses what you can imagine.”