Homilies

Joseph falls asleep with a decision already made. He has weighed the options, tried to keep his conscience clean, tried to do the least damage. He is a righteous man, and that righteousness does not make the situation simple. It makes it heavier.

Then God interrupts his careful plan—not with thunder, not with certainty, but with a dream. And the angel speaks a sentence that is almost startling, because the Gospel does not use the word “fear” until the angel names it: “Do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.”

Most of us spend our lives building walls. Not stone walls, usually. Although we certainly know fences, locks, and passwords. We build personal walls. We retreat into routine and hide inside busyness; we reassure ourselves, “I’ve got it handled.” That is how life stays manageable, predictable, and even pleasant. And if we’re not careful, God is treated the same way—tidy and familiar, safely kept at arm’s length.

Then Advent arrives like a cold wind at the gate. Jesus praises John the Baptist, and he asks the crowd one question: “What did you go out to the desert to see?” The word we hear as “desert” is better understood as “wilderness.” And the wilderness is not a scenic backdrop. It is outside the city’s protection, beyond the lamps and the watchmen. It is where you are exposed—to the elements, to hunger, to danger, to uncertainty, to your own limits.

Before sunrise on a December morning, an ordinary man walked the road toward mass on the hill of Tepeyac. He was not a governor, not a soldier, not a spokesman for a cause. Juan Diego was simply faithful—poor, overlooked, living in a world torn open by conquest, suspicion, and fear.

That is precisely where Our Lady chose to appear.

Guadalupe does not arrive as a badge for one side. She comes as Mother—Madre de Dios—for a wounded, divided society. Her presence says: you are not merely rivals, classes, or camps. You are children. One Mother, many peoples. She speaks to Juan Diego in a way he can receive, and she sends him back into the conflict with a task larger than himself.