One of the most beautiful phrases in the Nican Mopohua is Our Lady of Guadalupe’s resolute voice as she guides Juan Diego through his fear. “Am I not here,” she tells him, “I who am your mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection?” It is difficult to find a more compelling example of the best of humanity than Mary. Whether walking through the hills of Palestine or in Tepeyac centuries later, Mary models what it means to love fiercely and fearlessly as a mother does, and to harness the power of true empathy for the good of all. During this month when we honor Mary and all mothers, how do we learn to do the same?
Times of chaos
Open your eyes, and before you’ve had coffee, the news has already reached you about the latest crisis, another shocking executive order or the defamation of a whole new group of people. Far from welcoming the day with gratitude to serve a world that needs us, today most of us feel stunned and demoralized. The normal reaction to chaos is disorientation followed by paralysis and this is no accident; the point of unleashing chaos is to impede our ability to respond.
In the Gospels, the remarkable young Mary is thrust into the middle of the brutal Roman occupation destroying her people, and centuries later in Mexico, she comes to aid the indigenous and conquered threatened with annihilation. We can see a throughline to us. Chaos is the tool of oppressive powers used to break a society: Fire thousands of workers without cause; starve organizations that provide aid in the midst of famines, wars, disease, and environmental disasters, forcing them to close their doors; violate international laws and conventions on refugees and asylum-seekers by terminating all avenues to safety; cut off funding for scientific research that will help the sick and hungry; disband programs that try to remedy historically unjust social structures; persecute immigrants by dehumanizing them. There’s so many of these actions and they are so extreme, that there are almost 200 court cases right now trying to stop them. The deluge has a goal: the destruction of our capacity for empathy, because empathy builds community, and communities can be selfless, united and resilient. In Galilee and Tepeyac, Mary teaches us radical empathy.
Mary’s ways
Empathy is the cultivation of our ability to try to feel as the other feels and, through that experience, be transformed. In Luke’s Gospel our first glimpse of Mary is that she is troubled, yet she overcomes her fear, says yes to God and finds a new voice. By identifying with the lowly and powerless, Mary experiences their suffering, and a spirit of prophetic courage overtakes her. Mary proclaims that God “has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart … thrown down the rulers from their thrones … and lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1: 51-52). Mary of Nazareth communicates a God, who like a mother caring for her brood, frees them and feeds them.
In Mexico, La Virgen’s identification with the suffering indigenous is so profound that she appears as one of them speaking their language. Her empathy is what brings her into history. Having heard their cries, she intervenes—appearing to Juan Diego as a representative of all displaced and conquered peoples throughout history. She takes up their cause, confronts the powerful, builds up their voice and promises to always be present to “listen to their weeping, their sadness, to remedy, to cleanse and nurse all their different troubles, their miseries, their suffering.”
Mary invites us all to be mothers right now —to love deeply and extend our care and protection to everyone who needs it.
When we think of honoring her and mothers this May, may it be by following Mary’s example of empathy. Holding on to her veil resplendent with stars, may we have the courage to do what is difficult.
Cecilia González-Andrieu is professor of Theology at Loyola Marymount University and mother to Elise and Andrés.
