Pope: Mary's motherhood is the essence of Guadalupe

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Reducing the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe to anything other than an expression of Mary’s universal motherhood diminishes the true essence of the iconic Marian devotion, Pope Francis said.

“The mystery of Guadalupe is to venerate her and to hear in our ears: ‘Am I not here, I who am your mother?'” the pope said, referencing the words Mary is said to have spoken to St. Juan Diego.

“This is the whole message of Guadalupe. All others are ideologies,” he said in his homily at Mass for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Pope Francis presided over the Mass while seated, delivering a brief homily without reading from a prepared text. Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, was the main celebrant at the altar.

Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, uses incense to venerate an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Peter’s Basilica during Pope Francis’ Mass for the devotion’s feast day at the Vatican Dec. 12, 2024. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

“On this mystery of Guadalupe, unfortunately many ideologies have sought to derive ideological benefit,” the pope said in Spanish, recalling that the true message of Guadalupe lies in its simplicity.

Devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe is deeply rooted in Latin America and connected to 16th-century Marian apparitions in Mexico. According to tradition, Mary appeared to St. Juan Diego, an Indigenous Mexican, and left her image imprinted on his cloak. The image depicts Mary as pregnant, and it is said that roses — foreign to the region — miraculously spilled from his cloak when he presented it to the bishop.

“Mary’s motherhood is recorded on that cloak, that simple cloak,” Pope Francis said. “Mary’s motherhood is shown in the beauty of the roses that the Indian finds and takes with him, and Mary’s motherhood performs the miracle of bringing faith to the somewhat incredulous hearts of prelates.”

The mystery of the Marian apparitions in Mexico, the pope said, is to hear Mary’s message to St. Juan Diego — “Am I not here, I who am your mother?” — in “the different moments of life, the various difficult moments of life, the joyful moments of life, the ordinary moments of life.”

The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, which displays the cloak on which Mary’s image appeared, draws some 20 million pilgrims each year. Inscribed above its entrance are the words Mary is said to have spoken to St. Juan Diego.

“Anything else that is said about the mystery of Guadalupe beyond this is false and seeks to exploit it for ideologies,” Pope Francis said.

The Mass, celebrated in Spanish, included a reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians read in Portuguese. U.S.-born Cardinal Prevost, who previously served as a bishop in Peru, venerated an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe with incense upon arriving at the altar.

Among those presenting the gifts during Mass were people wearing traditional Andean headwear, an alpaca wool poncho and a woman with a cloak bearing the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe draped around her back.

After Mass, the pope spent ample time greeting the faithful as he left the basilica in a wheelchair, blessing and receiving images of Our Lady of Guadalupe.