Our Blessed Mother gave us two great miracles on this day four hundred ninety years ago this very day.
Acceding to the demand of Apostolic Administrator [later Archbishop] Fray Juan de Zumarraga, O.F.M., the Mother of God saw to it that Castilian roses grew atop Tepeyac Hill so that her little "Juanito," Juan Diego, a fifty-five year-old widower to whom she had first appeared on December 9, 1531, could provide proof that it was she who had made the request of Fray de Zumarraga to build a shrine in her honor on the hill where she appeared.
The administrator's guards, who had treated Juan Diego with such cruelty and even racism, spied those roses and tried to grab them out of Juan's tilma as he waited to see Fray de Zumarraga. The roses, quite miraculously, disappeared every time the guards sought to snatch them away from Juan Diego. Those Castilian roses were presented by Juan Diego to Fray Juan de Zumarraga, who knelt before the Indian convert to the Faith as he gazed upon the miraculous image that Juanito did not know was there: the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who was clearly expecting the Baby Jesus.
Remember, this was Advent in the year 1531, just forty-nine years after Christopher Columbus first set foot on the Island of San Salvador to implant the Cross of the Divine Redeemer in this hemisphere for the first time since Saint Brendan the Navigator had done so in the First Millennium.
Our Lady's miraculous image showing her expecting the Baby Jesus is quite symbolic of the expectant desire she had then—and has now—for the conversion of the peoples of the Americas to the true Faith, that each person and each nation be born anew as they submit themselves to Christ the King through His Catholic Church. Over nine million indigenous people converted to the true Faith within a short time following her apparition to Juan Diego on this day four hundred ninety years ago, almost person for person the number of people lost to the Faith as a result of the Protestant Revolt in Europe. It was almost as though God was saying to those who left, “Fine. I will have My Mother get new souls to populate Holy Mother Church and hence Heaven itself.”
The Americas were indeed converted to Catholicism, which is why the devil had to attack the Faith in Latin America with such ferocity by means of the Masonic revolutionaries who were supported in both philosophical and monetary terms by the lodges in the nascent Untied States of America. Great crimes were committed against Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Most Blessed Mother as a result. These crimes continue to this day, which is, of course, one of the reasons that Saint Michael the Archangel appeared with Our Lady as she spoke to Juan Diego. Our Lady has crushed the head of the serpent with her heel and Saint Michael the Archangel is our helper to crush him in our own lives and in the Americas where he reigns, albeit temporarily, in civil government and in popular culture.
May we rely upon the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Empress and Patroness of the Americas, to help us to be courageous enough to plant seeds for the conversion of the Americas, including the United States of America, to the Social Reign of Christ the King as It must be exercised by the Catholic Church.
Perhaps an extra Rosary today on this glorious feast day will help us to be more faithful and more courageous in our promotion of the Social Reign of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen. Viva Cristo Rey!
Finally, as I am now into the seventh day of a cold and flu that has laid us all pretty low, I have been unable to do much on my long delayed next original article. It is my hope to complete that article today before writing one or more thereafter
Viva Cristo Rey!
Viva La Virgen de Guadalupe!
A blessed [Commemorated] Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe to you all on Gaudete Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent.