Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

December 12, 2023

Today’s Invitation

Today we invite you to explore Our Lady of Guadalupe through the eyes of a Palestinian woman, and with the help of Palestinian Christian Mitri Raheb and theologian Ada María Isasi-Díaz; engage the history of colonization and empire in the Americas and Palestine, and where the Catholic Church fits in; and embody this moment through a contemplation on those who have been killed in Palestine, and the manger scene at the Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem this year.

Commentary by Yarilynne Esther Regalado

Read

Explore

Engage

Embody

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

First Reading
Zec 2:14-17 or Rv 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab
Responsorial Psalm
Judith 13:18BCDE, 19
Gospel
Lk 1:26-38 or Lk 1:39-47

Reading 1

Zec 2:14-17 or Rv 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab

“Shout aloud and rejoice, people of Zion!
I am coming, I will make my dwelling among you,” says YHWH.
Many nations will give their allegiance to YHWH on that day
and become God’s people,
and God will dwell in your midst.
Then you will know that YHWH Omnipotent sent me to you.
YHWH will claim Judah as God’s own portion in the holy land,
and will once again choose Jerusalem.
Silence, all mortal flesh! Be silent in the presence of YHWH,
who has been bestirred once again and come forth from the holy dwelling place!

Then God’s sanctuary in heaven was opened,
and within it the Ark of the Covenant could be seen.

Then a great sign appeared in heaven:
a women clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet,
with twelve starts on her head for a crown.
She was pregnant and in labor,
crying out in pain as she was about to give birth.
Then another sign appeared in heaven:
a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns,
and each of the seven heads with a crown.
Its tail swept a third of the stars from the sky
and hurled them down to the earth.
The dragon stood before the woman about to deliver,
to devour her child the moment she gave birth.
The woman gave birth to a male child, a son,
who is to rule the world with an iron rod.
But the child was snatched straight up to God and God’s throne.
The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven shout:
“Now have come salvation and power,
and the kindom of God,
and all authority for God’s Anointed.”

Responsorial Psalm

Judith 13:18BCDE, 19

Response (15:9D): You are the most esteemed of our people!

O daughter, you are truly blessed by YHWH
above all other women on the earth;
and blessed by YHWH,
who made the heavens and the earth.
R: You are the most esteemed of our people!

Your faith in God
will be remembered in the hearts
of all who celebrate the power of YHWH.
R: You are the most esteemed of our people!

Gospel

Lk 1:26-38 or Lk 1:39-47

The angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,
to a young woman named Mary;
she was engaged to a man named Joseph, of the house of David.
Upon arriving, the angel said to Mary,
“rejoice, highly favored one! God is with you!
Blessed are you among women!”
Mary was deeply troubled by these words
and wondered what the angel’s greeting meant.
The angel went on to say to her,
“Don’t be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God.
You’ll conceive and bear a son, and give him the name Jesus — ‘Deliverance.’
His dignity will be great, and he will be called the Only Begotten of God.
God will give Jesus the judgment seat of David, his ancestor,
to rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and his reign will never end.”
Mary said to the angel,
“How can this be, since I have never been with a man?”
The angel answered her,
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you
– hence the offspring to be born will be called the Holy One of God.
Know too that Elizabeth, your kinswoman, has conceived a child in her old age;
she who was thought to be infertile is now in her sixth month.
Nothing is impossible with God.”
Mary said, “I am the servant of God. Let it be done to me as you say.”
With that, the angel left her.

Within a few days Mary set out
and hurried to the hill country
to a town of Judah,
where she entered Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth.
As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
the child leaped in her womb
and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
In a loud voice she exclaimed,
“Blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb!
But why am I so favored,
that the mother of the Messiah should come to me?
The moment your greeting reached my ears,
the child in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed is she who believed
what our God said to her would be accomplished!”

Mary said:
“My soul proclaims your greatness, O God,
and my spirit rejoices in you, my Savior”

NOTE: The rest of Mary’s Magnificat hymn is excluded from the Roman Catholic lectionary. We reprint it here:

For you have looked with favor upon your lowly servant,
and from this day forward all generations will call me blessed.
For you, the Almighty, have done great things for me,
and holy is your Name.
Your mercy reaches from age to age
for those who fear you.
You have shown strength with your arm;
you have scattered the proud in their conceit;
you have deposed the mighty from their thrones
and raised the lowly to high places.
you have filled the hungry with good things,
while you have sent the rich away empty.
You have come to the aid of Israel your servant,
mindful of your mercy – the promise you made to our ancestors –
to Sarah and Abraham and their descendants forever.”

The inclusive language psalms:
Leach, Maureen, O.S.F. and Schreck, Nancy, O.S.F., Psalms Anew: A Non-sexist Edition
(Dubuque, IA: The Sisters of St. Francis, 1984).
Used with permission.

Read

Explore

To top

Read

Explore

A Mujerista Response to Empire

Somewhere in the Global South, a Brown woman learns that she will become a mother. At such a confusing time in her life, she feels nervous. How could this be? Her faith reassures her that this child, born in abnormal circumstances, will be special. As she nourishes her pregnant womb, the empire that occupies her land has ordered the killing of thousands of children just like the one she is carrying. Frightened, this Brown mother is forced to flee her home and becomes a refugee within the land that has nurtured her as she travels across dangerous and militarized borders. With no room or a safe place to go, her special child will be born and raised under occupation, under dehumanizing conditions, and under the rubble of genocide.

Whose story is this?

Palestinian Christian Mitri Raheb in her book Faith in the Face of Empire reminds us that when biblical stories are interpreted, it is the empire that “wants to control the storyline – its meaning, production, and marketing” in conscious and unconscious ways (23). Reading biblical scripture with a contextualized understanding of empire can help us to understand how we can actively live in solidarity with those who are oppressed.

To read the Bible with such an understanding, I turn to theologian Ada María Isasi-Díaz’s liberatory Mujerista theology and her book Mujerista Theology. Isasi-Díaz notes the importance of the body as a historical agent of liberation. Mujerista theology seeks to liberate Latina women who have historically been erased within mainline theologies, church, and society and “helps Hispanic women to see that radical structural change cannot happen unless radical change takes place in each and every one of us” (63). The task of marginalized Latina women is to clarify “the importance and value” of who they are, what they think, and what they do (62). Naming oneself becomes a crucial part of Mujerista theology’s liberatory praxis, or the combination of theory and action, as a name provides the “conceptual framework for, the point of reference, the mental constructs that are used in thinking, understanding, and relating to a person, an idea, a movement” (60). Naming oppressive systems allows us to recognize and directly critique the “invisible” structures that seek to oppress.

When understanding the circumstances that lead to Mary’s story in Luke, we must do justice to tell its story with its proper names: the story of Luke begins with Mary, a Brown, Palestinian Jewish woman who learns that she will become a mother. “Behold,” the angel Gabriel tells her, “you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.” How could this be? In such abnormal circumstances where King Herod has ordered the genocide of young children, just like the child Jesus whom Mary will birth and nourish, she is forced to flee from her home and becomes a refugee within the land that once nurtured her, as she travels across dangerous and militarized borders. With no room or a safe place to go, Mary’s son Jesus will be born and raised under occupation, under dehumanizing conditions, and under the rubble of genocide.

The mothers in ancient Bethlehem, Palestine who became refugees and childless; the mothers who crossed heavily militarized borders such as the U.S.-Mexico border; and the Palestinian mothers who have been escaping two months of brutal bombing by the Israeli state in Gaza today – this is their story.

Commentary by Yarilynne Esther Regalado

Yarilynne Esther Regalado (she/ella) a U.S.-born daughter of immigrants from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Yarilynne is in her final year of her masters program in NYC.

Explore

Engage

To top

Explore

Engage Catholic Social Teaching

Peace and Justice

The story of La Guadalupana (Our Lady of Guadalupe) is uplifted to show how naming oppressive structures and truth can allow us to engage in meaningful solidarity with our neighbor. In true Mujerista fashion, I engage by naming myself: I am Yarilynne Esther Regalado, a first generation, U.S.-born child of immigrant parents from the Caribbean with indigenous Taíno, African, and Spaniard roots. Both colonizer and colonized are in my body. As a white, fair-skinned woman of Caribbean descent, I am familiar with negotiating my identities of whiteness and brownness in different settings. The structures that exist to racialize, uplift, and exclude my body against others are not new to me.

La Guadalupana’s story is powerful and complex in similar ways. During the age of colonization in the late 15th century, the biblical scriptures became a tool to justify the Spanish Crown’s domination of the Americas as they waged their “Holy Christian war” against the Jews and Muslims who were believed to be inherently different and lesser than. Travelers like Christopher Columbus were sent by the Spanish empire to find and control the wealth that lay in Asia’s trade routes, so that this war could be sustained. Accidently landing in the Caribbean instead, the Age of Discovery in the Americas marked the Age of Domination over indigenous peoples in the Americas and enslaved Africans. This is the context leading to Juan Diego’s encounter with La Virgen in Mexico, an impactful story representing both stories of coloniality and erasure as well as the preservation of Mexican culture and identity in Catholicism.

The empire story that is a part of Mary’s story in Luke – and Juan Diego’s encounter with La Virgen in Mexico – is a part of Palestine’s story today. Mitri Raheb notes how the U.S. has (and continues to be) a financial supporter and enabler of the Israeli occupation of Palestine for the sake of controlling the wealth of petroleum (23). Isaac Munther, Palestinian Christian and Pastor of Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, Palestine, notes the “double standards” that have racialized and dehumanized Palestinian lives for years. His body, as a Brown, Palestinian Christian, directly challenges the Western Church’s silence in claiming neutrality and in adopting a “both sides” approach to this conflict. As Isasi-Díaz reminds us, naming oneself is one of the most powerful things we can do, and the conflict in Palestine must be called what it is: settler colonialism, Israeli occupation, genocide against Palestianians.

Isasi Díaz tells us that solidarity is the sine qua non of salvation, which means that “we have to be very clear about who ‘our neighbor’ is. Our neighbor, according to Matthew 25, is the least of our sisters and brothers. Neighbors are the poor, the oppressed, for whom we must have a preferential option” (88). Liberation is our “participation in the act of salvation,” Isasi-Díaz states, and salvation “consists of our work to transform the world” (90) and depends on loving our neighbor through solidarity (88). She says that “In order for a person to become fully human, to overcome sin, to move from alienation to a love-relationship with God and with others, justice has to prevail” (101). When we do not see the humanity of our Palestinian siblings, we are losing our humanity.

When empire attempts to erase your story, how do you respond? What happens when you see a part of yourself in the theological story? What happens when you recognize your body as a historical agent in the church and in society? When you see a part of yourself in the other, what is your response?

Mary’s encounter with the angel Gabriel led her to carry the movement in her womb. When Juan Diego saw a part of his indigenous self in La Guadelupana, his response was to build a church and to build the movement with his hands. When we see the struggles of the Palestinians, what is our response? As Western Christians living within the “belly of the beast” of the U.S. imperialist empire, the same empire that used biblical scriptures to justify the dehumanization and enslavement of Africans and indigenous peoples, what is our response when such biblical scriptures are being used to justify the dehumanization, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of Palestinians?

What will we carry? What will we build? What will we do?

Your response will be a part of your name that we carry. What are we willing to do in our name? The world is desperate for your response.

Engage

Embody

To top

Engage

Embody

A Contemplative Exercise
Art

A Contemplative Exercise

Whether you are in community or in solitude, make sure you create a safe space for you to be brave. Be in a comfortable position and feel free to utilize prayer beads, rosaries, and other items of significance that can help ground your heart, mind, and body in this exercise.

Using the official list of Palestinians killed by the Israeli government, (list at the bottom of the article) read aloud the names of the Palestinians killed by the Israeli government from October 7-25, 2023, as such: “My neighbor (name) was (how many years old).” Go slow, very slow, and breathe deeply.

To close this exercise, journal your thoughts. If you are in a group, feel free to share your thoughts aloud. Some prompts to think about: What are your roots? Who are you the child of? Who makes up your chosen family? What are the roots of resistance that have shaped who you are? How can your own traditions breed change for this present moment?

Call to Action:

End the Nakba Letter https://www.endthenakbaletter.com/open-letter

If you are a Christian in the U.S. or Canada, consider taking this one act of solidarity and sign this open letter in support of stopping “Israel’s invasion, siege, and occupation of Gaza.”

The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF), the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC), and Kairos Palestine share these resources and petitions:

Kairos Palestine: https://www.kairospalestine.ps/

Sign the petition: https://shorturl.at/giJM1

WCRC: Focus Palestine: A WCRC Handbook:

Palestine BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction)
https://bdsmovement.net/

World Student Christian Federation (WSCF):
Solidarity and Advocacy: A policy paper on Palestine https://wscf.ch/wscf-in-action/governance/35th-ga-2015-bogota

Art

Bethlehem Nativity Scene

Palestinian Christains have made it clear this year that Christmas is canceled in Bethlehem. The nativity scene at Bethlehem’s Lutheran Church reflects the reality of children in Gaza as it depicts baby Jesus wrapped in a traditional keffiyeh, a symbol of Palestinian resistance in occupation.

“If Christ were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble and Israeli shelling,” Pastor Isaac Munther states. He continues:

“How can we as people who celebrate the birth of a Palestinian born under occupation and not alter our worship traditions when in Palestine over Christmas we are witnessing a genocide that has not discriminated against children?

Christmas is not about traditions, it is about Christ. If disrupting traditions helps us engage more with the gospel – do it. If it helps us shape how we might engage the world waiting for liberation – do it. Hallmark should not shape our imagination. The refugee, oppressed, under occupation should be the ones we hear crying out. ‘O come Emmanuel.’”

Image description: At the Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem is a nativity scene set up against the stone walls. The figures are arranged in a pile of rubble, as Gaza is now, with a baby Jesus in the center wrapped in a black and white keffiyeh.

Image description: A close up of the baby Jesus in the nativity scene, surrounded by rubble, with a candle lit near the statue.

Embody

To top

Embody