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This week’s St Louis Review:

June 15, 2007

Guadalupe pilgrims return spiritually refreshed

Anne Steffens
ON TO MASS — On June 8, the fifth day of the pilgrimage, Archbishop Raymond Burke walks with pilgrims Patricia and Jorge Viamontes to morning Mass at the chapel at the top of Tepeyac Hill, where St. Juan Diego witnessed the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531. The Viamonteses are members of St. Anselm Parish in Creve Coeur.
Archbishop Raymond L. Burke said he was deeply moved and pleased by the experiences he shared last week in Mexico City with his fellow pilgrims from the St. Louis Archdiocese.

In an interview June 11, he described the six-day pilgrimage he led to the holy places associated with Our Lady of Guadalupe and her apparitions to St. Juan Diego in 1531. He traveled with 75 people from the archdiocese; they left June 4 and returned June 9. The youngest on the trip was a ninth-grader; the eldest, an octogenarian. Archbishop Burke said he was “very deeply impressed by the unity of the pilgrims, who Our Blessed Mother very quickly brought together, and also by (their) great devotion.”

It was such an edifying experience, the archbishop said, that he hopes to lead more pilgrimages of the archdiocesan faithful to Mexico City. He would like to do so every other year, if possible.

The trip was extra special for him as it was the first time he had led a pilgrimage of archdiocesan faithful to Mexico City. It was his fifth pilgrimage and sixth visit to the Marian sites.

The reason he keeps going back is “really simple,” he said. “It’s our Blessed Mother. She’s there in an extraordinary way in the image that she’s left behind and in the dedication and devotion which she inspires. So I love going back to her whenever I can, and, of course, it always brings me special joy to be able to take others with me.”

The pilgrims, he said, spent much time together in prayer and devotion, and in particular, participating in daily Mass, “the source of their joy and the heart of the activity.”

He added, “It was not only a holy time but also a time to enjoy one another’s company, so it was good.”

The pilgrims attended Mass at the central holy sites associated with the Blessed Mother, St. Juan Diego and his dying uncle, to whom Mary appeared and healed. The Masses were celebrated by the archbishop, who speaks fluent Spanish, and other archdiocesan priests on the pilgrimage.

Archbishop Burke called on the pilgrims to be “missionaries of God’s mercy and love in our society today, especially on behalf of those who are suffering in any way and those whose dignity as human beings is not fully respected.” He said he hoped they would be renewed in the Respect Life apostolate, “but also in all forms of bringing God’s mercy and love to others.”

Archbishop Burke has long revered Mary under the title of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He first learned about her from the sisters who taught him at grade school while growing up in Wisconsin. In 1999 as bishop of La Crosse, Wis., he founded a Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in his home diocese to renew devotional life there.

It was in reading Pope John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation on the Church in America that the archbishop “came to a really deeper appreciation of the importance of Our Lady of Guadalupe for the Church in our country, and that’s what has led me to an ever deeper devotion. The more I have gotten to know her apparitions and the message that she gave to St. Juan Diego the more I’ve been inspired. It’s just been a kind of growing relationship with her.”

The Blessed Mother under her title of Our Lady of Guadalupe “makes it very clear that her sole mission is to bring us to her Son that we might know God’s mercy and love in our lives,” he said.

“She came right at the beginning of the first evangelization of America. Columbus discovered America in 1492, and then not quite 40 years later, the Blessed Mother appeared. And she really inspired the first evangelization of our continent. So now as we face the growing secularization of our society and the particular challenges of living the faith in our time, it is our Blessed Mother under her title of Our Lady of Guadalupe who guides us and inspires us.”

Archbishop Burke added that Pope John Paul II had accepted a title which had been given to Our Lady of Guadalupe by the bishops of South and Central America. That title is “‘Star of the New Evangelization.’ By ‘star,’ we mean that she is the one who is leading us and guiding us in the New Evangelization of our time.”

Several pilgrims became nearly speechless when asked to describe their experience in Mexico City.

Jeanne Fluri, a member of St. Clement of Rome Parish in Des Peres, became tearful when she described seeing the tilma with the image of Our Lady at the Basilica of Guadalupe.

“My last time (seeing the tilma) before we had to leave — oh, I get tears now — I thought, Our Lady, will I get to see you again like this? It was so beautiful,” she said. “To me, it’s about as close to heaven as you can get. To be right there where the actual tilma was.”

Fluri said she also was overcome by the poverty she saw all around her in Mexico City. However, “they’re all joyous. Nobody is like, ‘Poor me.’ They’re very joyous, and our guides were so loving and knowledgeable.”

Being able to make a pilgrimage with Archbishop Burke also was a highlight for Fluri. She said he created “such joy” in those who made the trip.

“It’s kind of like having an ambassador to God go with you,” she said. “Each liturgy he prepared so beautifully.”

Tracy Rice, a member of St. Peter Parish in Kirkwood, said the experience of seeing the tilma left her speechless. She said she also observed the immense reverence that pilgrims and native Mexicans seemed to have for Our Lady.

“We saw pilgrims kneeling, crawling on their knees into the shrine,” she said. “The people in Mexico, this is such gift for them. You saw sisters, you saw priests, you saw brothers, how they stand there and just gaze and pray with their Rosaries.”

“It was so wonderful to be there with her,” said Rice, “and thinking about what it must have been like for St. Juan Diego and Bishop Zumárraga, what they must have been experiencing.”

Rice also enjoyed a little alone time on the trip. Her husband, John, stayed home with their six young children so she could make her first pilgrimage.

“It was a large effort to make all of this happen,” she said. “He stayed home from work. I did get my own room. I loved it. I had my own bathroom and my own space.”

Rice also said the trip renewed her faith life and gave her a new energy.

“When I came home, I was like, ‘Where’s my Rosary?’ So maybe Our Lady’s working in me.”

Rosemary and Bob Popp, members of Assumption Parish in O’Fallon, also were among those who made their first pilgrimage to Mexico.

Rosemary Popp said that what was most striking to her on the trip was “the churches and the Masses. The buildings were really breathtaking.

“Every day was a different church, and they all had something special,” she said.

Popp’s cousin, she said, told her about the tilma years ago “and that it’s something you really should see if you can. It really was kind of like a fulfillment of a dream. It was definitely worth the trip.”

The pilgrimage was a family trip for the Langs — husband Gary, wife Lynne and son Joseph, a seminarian at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary. “It was one of the highlights of my life,” said Lynne Lang. “It is something that I will look back on years from now and say it was one of the most spiritually significant things that ever happened to me.”

The Langs, members of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque Parish in Oakville, knew Archbishop Burke when he was the bishop of La Crosse. Joseph, now almost 21, attended Holy Cross Seminary, the high school seminary in La Crosse. It was there they learned much about Our Lady of Guadalupe, as then-Bishop Burke led a project to create a shrine in La Crosse to Mary under that title. That shrine is to be formally dedicated in the summer of 2008.

“When we found out the archbishop was thinking about taking a trip to Guadalupe and was leading this group, there was no question but that we would go. It was one of the highlights of our lives. We were all so spiritually moved by the trip and by the presence of the archbishop,” Lynne Lang said.

“I would heartily recommend a pilgrimage to anyone, especially a pilgrimage with the archbishop. I think with Archbishop Burke as shepherd of a pilgrimage, his presence and his prayerfulness and his knowledge and his heart and his spirit and his accessibility — I can’t imagine anyone on that trip feeling anything other than that it was a wonderful opportunity. Archbishop Burke is without a doubt a true blessing for our archdiocese. We think as a spiritual role model and guide he is truly divinely inspired,” Lang said.

Julie Weber of St. Peter Parish in St. Charles called the pilgrimage to Mexico “very moving.”

“I felt so close to God. It was wonderful. And Archbishop Burke was a wonderful shepherd. We all grew so close, the people on the trip.”

Weber said during the pilgrimage she prayed for others, including a sick relative. Other pilgrimage participants prayed with her. “The Blessed Mother made me feel very calm about everything.”

This was not Weber’s first pilgrimage. “I went to Rome in 2003 for the beatification of Mother Teresa. I think that’s the only way to go, to take a pilgrimage. Everything else seems pretty frivolous unless God’s at the center of it. I recommend it to everyone.”

Joseph Keusenkothen also gave high praise to the pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. A parishioner at St. Paul in Fenton, Keusenkothen said “It was great.”

He continued, “I read about it in the Review and thought it would be a good thing to do. This increased my faith in the Blessed Virgin and in conversion. Seeing the tilma itself and the churches — that was really interesting. And I enjoyed being with all these people.”

Carol Smith, a member of St. Clare of Assisi Parish in Ellisville, also learned about the pilgrimage by reading the Review.

“My husband couldn’t go, but a friend of mine from our parish — Pat McLeese — wanted to go, so I had someone to go with. It was simply wonderful.”

Smith said actually being at the historic shrine was very moving. “I knew something of the history behind it and about the tilma. When you see the tilma, it’s enclosed in glass, but you’ve seen the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe so often you think at first, ‘oh, I’ve seen this.’ Then you suddenly realize — this is the tilma. This tilma is from 1531. It’s amazing it’s still there.”

Smith said the sheer size of the shrine was amazing. “Where the shrine is is such a huge area. I was just overwhelmed with all the people in the shrine praying. You feel like you are in a holy, holy place.”

God bless ArchBishop Burke.