“It must be you.”
December 14, 2022
Fr. John Riccardo
“I beg you, my Lady, to entrust the delivery of your message to someone of importance, well known, respected, and esteemed, so that they may believe him.
“I am a nobody, a small rope, a tiny ladder, the tail end and a leaf.”
“My son, I have many servants and messengers to whom I entrust the delivery of my messages and carry my wishes…But it must be you.”
This exchange took place in early December, 1531, between Saint Juan Diego and the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe. This was the second time Juan Diego saw the Virgin Mary. In their first encounter, Our Lady had asked him to tell the bishop, Juan de Zumarraga, that she desired a Church to be built in her honor and for the glory of the one true God, the Creator of all. The bishop, understandably, did not believe that this simple peasant had actually seen the Mother of God. What happened afterwards (the Castilian roses, the miraculous imprinting of the image of Our Lady on Juan Diego’s tilma, and, of course, the bishop recognizing that Mary had in fact requested this) history now knows.
This conversation was brought back to our attention last week, when we in ACTS XXIX were blessed to be on retreat with the teachers and principals in the Archdiocese of Denver. The superintendent there, Elias Moo, a truly gifted leader, shared it with us as we began the second day of retreat. That day happened to be the Feast of St. Juan Diego. He offered it as an encouragement to us all, who so often feel less than up to the task God places before us. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.
It must be you.
How often do you and I feel like Juan Diego? How could God Most High possibly entrust the message of the gospel to…us? How many of us find ourselves inadequate when it comes to sharing the great story of what God has done in Jesus? Surely, there must be someone more qualified, more credible, more convincing, more confident, without my history and my struggles.
I’m a nobody.
No. It must be you.
“Consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are” (1 Cor 1:26-8).
As we draw ever nearer to the great celebration of the Nativity of Jesus, the eternal Son of the Father, who came to rescue the world from the powers of Sin and Death, let us pray for two things. First, let’s pray that the Lord will give us divine appointments to share the reason for our hope with others, that we might help them understand what exactly it is we’re celebrating, and why the gospel is extraordinary, explosive and life-changing news. Second, let’s ask Mary, the mother of our Lord and of us all, for the grace to be able to say to God, no matter what He might ask of us, “I’m Yours, Lord. Use me and do with me whatever You want.”