The following story appeared December 11 on the site of the Catholic News Agency.
Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles is describing Advent as “a season of Mary” and a time for Catholics to “turn to Mary in a new way.”
“We have to take Mary into our homes. Into our lives. We need to love her and learn from her as our mother. She was a perfect daughter of God, so we can learn from her how to act as God’s sons and daughters,” the archbishop said in his Dec. 7 column for the Tidings newspaper.
Two major Marian holy days are celebrated in December: the Dec. 8 Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which honors Mary being conceived without sin, and the Dec. 12 Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which commemorates the appearance of Mary to St. Juan Diego in 16th-century Mexico.
“In my mind, there is a deep connection between these two feast days,” Archbishop Gomez said.
“In God’s plan of salvation, Mary was conceived without original sin to announce the world’s ‘new creation’ in the coming of Jesus,” he said. “Many centuries later, in the apparition at Tepeyac, God was sending Mary to announce the coming of Jesus to the ‘new world’ of the Americas.”
The archbishop said Mary’s life is filled with “silence and hiddenness.” Major events in her life like the Annunciation and the Visitation were “off the radar” and no one “was there to see them or record them.”
In this, he saw a lesson for those who “lead quiet lives.”
“The good that we do will only be seen and known by the small circles of those closest to us – in our families and neighborhoods; in the places where we work,” he said. “Like Mary, we can live as children of God – filling our days with quiet acts of faithfulness.
Carrying out our daily duties with love and care for others. Sharing our joy and love for Jesus in simple and natural ways.”
The archbishop recommended that Catholics try to set aside time every day to think about the Virgin Mary or to look at a picture of her.
“Talk to her as her child. Tell her everything that’s on your mind. Ask her to help you grow as a child of God,” he said.
Archbishop Gomez announced that Los Angeles’ Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels will begin a new tradition of celebrating “las mañanitas,” the traditional songs sung by Mexicans and others for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The cathedral will host an evening festival of songs and worship on Dec. 11 ahead of a midnight Mass celebrated by the archbishop. The festival will include a concert and Aztec dancers.
The archbishop said the festival is especially fitting because the cathedral’s new chapel now hosts a relic of St. Juan Diego’s tilma which bears the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Devotees may venerate the relic before the celebration. The Mass and “las mañanitas” will be broadcast live in Latin America and in the U.S. by EWTN and live streamed on the archdiocese of Los Angeles’ Facebook page.
On the evening of Dec. 15, Archbishop Gomez will celebrate a Mass to launch the Simbang Gabi Celebration, a traditional Filipino novena to the Virgin Mary in anticipation of Christmas.
For original story, click here.
“The festival will include a concert and Aztec dancers.”
With Aztec dancers also present at Bishop Vann’s installation, is it in the rubrics that Aztec dancers must be present at all Masses?
Clinton,
Re.: “is it in the rubrics that Aztec dancers be present at all Masses?”, read my comments in “Bishop Vann installed as bishop of Orange”,
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
The Aztec dancers seem to me as glorifying the Aztec culture more than glorifying Christ. I don’t get it but maybe others do.
The Aztec culture was defined by it’s demonic common rituals of gory human sacrifice and extensive cannibalism. We should emphasize the liberation of the Aztec people from the clutches of evil by the miracle Visitation of
Our Lady of Guadalupe (pray for us)
Very easy today to look and see the natures of Aztec and Mayan cultural influence in the absense of Catholicism … to wit, violent street gangs, who gain power solely committing atrocious violent acts against innocent victims as well as against themselves. Catholicism is about saving individual souls; read the works of Blessed John Paul II on this, or simply learn Catholicism.
How about learning the story behind Our Lady of Guadalupe before bashing the dancers who by the way are NOT performing during the Mass!!!!! The dances are NOT done in celebration to their Aztec pagan heritage, the dances are done in celebration to Our Lady of Guadalupe appearing before St Juan Diego and leading them to Christ!!!
It is done out of joy and celebration of knowing Christ.
I don’t know how many time you all must hear that this DID NOT take place during the Mass, but it is truly upsetting the bickering and complaining that took place in the comments to the article on Bishop Vann’s Installation Mass! AND MOST BY PEOPLE WHO WERE NOT EVEN IN ATTENDANCE!
Oh and please don’t call me a modernist for being accepting of festive dancers before a joyous occasion. Again it was not held during the Mass! There was nothing wrong with Bishop Vann’s Installation especially the Mass. I am glad they held it at the Bren Center, when Archbishop Gomez had his installation Mass I drove up to Los Angeles only to be turned away because the Cathedral could not accommodate everyone that day! As a Catholic, to be turned away from MASS was very heartbreaking to me and I cried all way back home in wonderful downtown LA rush hour traffic. Orange County has been praying for such a shepherd and through God the
Holy Father sent one! It will take some time to correct problems in LA and OC. I am blessed that in OC Catholics have the Norbertines at St Michael’s Abbey and please do not tell me that they are a bunch of modernist, too.
St Juan Diego was not a dancer, and he renounced his pagan roots while taking up Catholicism.
This story is about spirituality. It is about how to live devotion to Mary. We would do well to obey the bishop. Silence and hiddenness. That is faith. Lead quiet lives filling our days with quiet acts of faithfulness. Carry out our duties with love and care for others. Share our joy and love for Jesus in simple and natural ways. Take time everyday to think about Mary and look at a picture of Her. Talk to her about everything. Ask her to make you grow as a child of God. Hooray! This is traditional Catholicism. I see more and more bishops promoting traditional devotions like those to Mary and St. Joseph. I was at Mass recently when the priest said that he never missed a day praying the Rosary.
The benefit of the Traditional Latin Mass is the absense of localized fanfare, and the subsequent promotion of worship instead of how colorful we all can be.
Catholicism is responding to God instead of to some particular culture. St Paul puts the cultural celebrations apart from the Mass. Decades ago I was involved in some of these “splash and flash” liturgies until I realized that they limit the degree and intensity of worship to a very worldly level.