Mary Rose Up in Haste in Those Days

Our Lady in Advent
The presence of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the liturgy of Advent is like the fragrance of roses in December. Our Lady is everywhere, drawing us after her into the mystery of Christ. With Advent, the Church has entered into a Marian Jubilee Year, gratefully commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Apparitions of the Immaculate Conception to Saint Bernadette at Lourdes. “He, that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches” (Ap 2:11).
A Moment of Grace
This is a moment of grace, a moment of conversion, a moment of hope for each of us. The All-Holy and Immaculate Mother of God emerges from her hiddenness? Why? Because her children, threatened by the ancient dragon, are in need of her maternal and regal presence. The vision vouchsafed to Saint Juan Diego is the same one that dazzled the eyes of another John, on the Island of Patmos: “And the temple of God was opened in heaven: and the ark of his testament was seen in his temple, and there were lightnings, and voices, and an earthquake, and great hail. And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Ap 11:19a; 12:1).
She who “rose up in those days, and went into the hill country in haste” (Lk 1:39), first into the hill country of Palestine to visit her cousin Elizabeth, and then, centuries, later into the hill country of Mexico to visit Juan Diego, visit us today. She visits us by means of the graces that, ever flowing from her open hands, bear witness to her presence and to her maternal and regal action.
The Battleground of the Heart
Do not let the grace of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe pass without changing you. Even the loftiest mystical graces are useless if they leave us unrepentant and unchanged. Pray the humble prayer of the Rosary, not sparingly, but continuously, at every free moment. It decapitates pride. It extinguishes lust, envy, covetousness, possessiveness, and greed. It pulls up the seven capital sins by their roots. The great cosmic battle between the Woman and the Dragon is not fought in the fantasies of movie screens. It is fought on the battleground of human hearts, one heart at a time.