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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
What a blessed time for our Diocese! I certainly count it among my blessings in life to be a part of this Church of Metuchen, and I thank God for all of you each morning. Our Year of Spiritual Awakening of Faith bore much fruit, as we strove to wake up and become even more aware of God’s love and desire for us. Just as St. Juan Diego was prepared for the encounter he had with our Mother Mary, so we have been preparing ourselves for our encounter, our consecration to Jesus through Our Lady of Guadalupe. Our students participated with a consecration in each of their schools on her feast day, and in the evening, we gathered in our beautiful Cathedral, filled to capacity, with Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the Pope’s representative to our country, presiding at Mass. At the end of the Mass, I led our faithful in our consecration and on the following weekend, each of our parishes was asked to recite the prayer of consecration together in a great moment of prayer as we entrusted our whole Diocese to Our Lady of Guadalupe asking her to bring us closer to Her Son.
Mary always desires to bring us to her Son. St. Juan Diego used his tilma, his cloak, and gathered up the roses which miraculously appeared on the Hill of Tepeyac. They were used as proof of Mary’s visit to us. When he released the roses in front of the Bishop, Mary’s image appeared on the cloak. It is the only image of Mary that she left of herself in our world, a “selfie” of herself if you will. Normally, the images of Mary we have from her apparitions are reports of what the visionaries saw, but this image was left by her. It has miraculously been preserved through all these years. Just as St. Juan Diego gathered the roses in his cloak, which was usually used for gathering vegetation from gardens or transporting other objects, so Mary is now gathering all of us in her cloak, to bring us closer to heart of her Son.
When we visited the Shrine of Guadalupe in Mexico in October, the Rector of the Shrine told us a beautiful story of how the people of Mexico at that time, at their weddings, would tie their tilmas together to symbolize their marriage covenant; the couple being tethered together for life. So, we through our consecration have been forever tethered together with Our Lady of Guadalupe. We have entered a sacred covenant with her; we promise to pray to her daily and in turn she will hold us in her tilma, close to her heart and to that of her Son.
It is opportune that this consecration takes place right before our celebration of the birth of Jesus at Christmas. In Bethlehem, God made flesh forever, tethers Himself to us, too. Our God knows what our life is like, our joys and struggles. Because He is both God and man, He is able to open the gates of paradise to us, becoming the first born from the dead at His glorious resurrection, whom we hope to join in heaven someday even as we pray that our beloved dead are resting forever with Him in heaven. Yes, Christmas reminds us like no other day of the year that God desires us! God desires us! That is what we celebrate.
It is God’s greatest desire that each one of us, all His beloved sons and daughters, open our hearts to Him and allow Him to fill us with His life, joy, mercy and peace. This Christmas, basking in the joy of our consecration to Him through Our Lady of Guadalupe, let us open our hearts more widely to Jesus by taking some time each day to accept Him more fully into our lives. Let us open our hearts more widely to Him by serving our brothers and sisters in need. Let us open our hearts more widely to Him by inviting our brothers and sisters, whether they be family members, friends, co-workers, classmates or whomever we meet, to come and join us in worshipping Him and receiving Him regularly in the sacraments. Nothing can please God more than our opening our hearts to Him more fully by responding in these ways.
Yes, the Year of Spiritual Awakening of Faith leading up to our Consecration of our Diocese to Our Lady of Guadalupe has been an initiative to be intentionally aware of God working in our midst. It has been a time of education, inspiration, opportunity for increased confessions, Eucharistic Adoration and parish sponsored evenings for preaching and teaching on the meaning of the apparition and miracle.
This Consecration is intended to be a moment of beginning. It is an act of faith to lead us to embrace this new moment of greater fervor and living our Christian faith more boldly. It is a time to trust more in God than in ourselves; He knows what He is doing! The apparition of Our Lady on Tepeyac to St. Juan Diego is a model for viewing our ongoing efforts of evangelization, here and now. St. Juan Diego was instrumental in seeing, believing and acting on what he experienced in his encounter with the Virgin Mary. You and I are now called to respond like St. Juan Diego, seeing, believing and acting on what we have experienced!
From our consecration, all of us in this diocese now have an advocate and model in Mary, Our Mother — who in her fiat, her “yes” to God, shows us the pathway to surrender to God’s plans for our lives and for our Church. We have had a very challenging year as a diocese and as a Church, filled with sadness; but we know that God is with us and for us; and He never abandons His Spouse, the Church. We are the Church, His spouse and Mary boldly reminded us in Tepeyac that we should not fear, as she is with us too, always, through our joys and blessings, through our sorrows, pains and even failures. We do not know what is ahead, but we do not live in fear or panic; we live in confidence for we live with renewed faith, we work for a brighter tomorrow, filled with healing, peace, mercy, love and justice, living in the light of His Gospel.
The next step is for all of us to first give thanks for this new moment of grace, and for each person in our diocese to consider: “what more could I do in my life to love and serve Christ and His Church? Next month, we will all be invited to take a step forward and consider doing something new or increasing something that already exists in our parish or school, but to do so with renewed energy, doing it with even greater love; with great devotion, with prayer and for the sake of helping others to come to know who Christ is and the role His mother Mary plays in our spiritual journey. Together we will “take a step forward” in faith; yes, a step forward in faith!
Our diocesan Curia at the pastoral center is working more intentionally with our pastoral plan “Lighting Hearts on Fire.” This is the lens of evangelization and the areas of diocesan life that will be more intentionally brought to life by focusing on what more can done to reinvigorate parish life.
Our parish ambassadors have been a blessing. They have my heartfelt thanks for all they have done, and I ask them to continue to be a resource for ongoing communication and formation in intentional discipleship and sharing best practices and creative ways to further implement prayerful, Marian and Eucharistic spirituality in our parishes. Our response to Mary must be more concrete steps taken to advance a pastoral and spiritual connection with each other and to support all our people in growing in a life of missionary discipleship.
We take our first steps with increased prayer, prayer to our Blessed Mother, having a special relationship with her, for she has chosen us for this Consecration. She has sought us out as her special project so to speak and she wants to accomplish great things here in our diocese for Her Son, because she is our loving Mother who never turns away from us.
My brothers and sisters, thank you for your faithfulness to God and our Mother Mary, thank you for your faithfulness to our Church, and also, for your love and support of me as I work with whatever energy and grace God gives me to guide our local Church to a brighter future in God, to be the shepherd you deserve; I am so grateful to you. May this consecration and our upcoming celebration of Christmas be one of recognizing His desire for us and let us joyfully and wholeheartedly respond to Him. Know of my love and prayers for you. Yes, God desires us! Mary desires us! Let us go to them, always! May our Lady of Guadalupe and the newborn King of Kings bless each of you in marvelous ways during this Holy Season! May our consecration bear great fruit in making God known and loved more throughout our beautiful four counties!
Merry Christmas and God bless and keep you all!
The Most Reverend James F. Checchio, JCD, MBA Bishop of Metuchen