By receiving the Eucharist worthily, Catholics become the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, as a living sign of Christ to the world, said Bishop William E. Lori, the supreme chaplain of the Knights of Columbus.
Bishop Lori was the principal celebrant and homilist on Saturday morning, for the Votive Mass of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It was the final Mass during a week of Knights of Columbus events in Phoenix, which included the 127th Supreme Convention and the first International Marian Congress of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and will conclude with the Guadalupe Festival on Saturday afternoon (August 8).
In his homily, Bishop Lori announced that he was renewing his act of entrusting his service as a bishop, and as supreme chaplain, to Our Lady of Guadalupe, an act of devotion he had first performed while visiting the Basilica of Guadalupe a few years ago.
He invited all those at Mass “to entrust your lives of faith, your vocations, your families, your work to Our Lady of Guadalupe, this woman of love, who has come to us, to protect us and to lead us to Christ.”
In receiving Holy Communion, the bishop said, Catholics become closer to Christ through Mary, who brought the Savior into the world and still presents him to humanity.
“We, the sons and daughters of the Virgin of Guadalupe, will be living signs of the transforming presence of Christ in the world today,” he said. “We will be that sign of contradiction, defending the unborn, the sign protecting the family, serving the poor, assisting the immigrant. We will allow Christ to dwell in us as in a temple so that his light will shine through us to a darkened, hope-starved world.”
During Mass, a small relic of the actual tilma of Juan Diego was displayed. The relic was given as a gift of the Archbishop of Mexico in 1941 to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The only know portion of the tilma that is on display in the United States, the relic is on loan from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for the duration of the Knights of Columbus events this week in Phoenix.