It's been 16 years since the day my husband and I got married on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We chose that feast day specifically in honor of Our Lady. It was a icy cold, windy and snowy Saturday morning that those brave enough to make it out in such dangerous conditions came out for our wedding.
Our immediate family of course were all there. Good friends also made it a point to be there with us.
Those who attended told us that our nuptial Mass was beautiful. I believe it was because it was done in honor of Our Lady. On the altar we had the wedding candle which I had decorated with the image of our Lady of Guadalupe from Holy Cards that I recently started passing out to friends.
Later as is a tradition, my beautiful bridal bouquet made up up pale pink roses, almost peach in color and baby's breath was presented to Our Lady and laid by her statue.
Ever since that December 12th, 16 years ago, my husband and I have felt our Lady's protection over our family. The three of us have a big devotion to her.
Over the years, we had encounters with our Lady of Guadalupe even though we are yet to make a pilgrimage to
la Basilica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Mexico City.
A few years ago, at one of the Marian conferences we attended as a family,
Fr. Pablo Straub was a guest speaker. You may know him from missions he gives and are shown on
EWTN. Father Straub, while wearing a reproduction of Juan Diego's tilma, gave a mesmerizing talk on our lady of Guadalupe. It was more of a one-man show rather than a priest's homily.
The apparitions at Tepeyac were brought to life by Father's talk.
The talk he gave just happened to be on December 12th. Afterward, we had an opportunity to briefly introduce ourselves to him. We mentioned it just so happened to be our anniversary. Without any hesitation Father Straub offered to bless us. Before he started blessing us, he called over our little Joey who couldn't have been more than 6 or 7 years old at the time, and Father Straub, the priest who so loves our Lady of Guadalupe, gave us a beautiful blessing on our anniversary and her feast day!
Our home is filled with different religious items. Many are statues or pictures of our lady given to us mostly by my mom, sisters and my late grandma. We have two that are very dear to us. One is a print of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the way she appeared on San Juan Diego's tilma. The other
is of a Peruvian
retablo made Our Lady of Guadalupe.
We pray the angelus at noon and 6:00 PM in front of the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She is a constant presence in our lives.
One reason for this is that since this is the only time the Blessed Mother appeared expecting, we have an affection for her carrying baby Jesus in her womb.
We are therefore now adding the following after we pray the Angelus:
"Our Lady of Guadalupe, Protect the Unborn"
Another encounter happened two years ago at the Divine Mercy conference my family and I attended.
The guest speaker at that time was
Dan Lynch, he is also an expert on our Lady of Guadalupe. He travels with her image giving talks about the image itself and its awesome symbolism.
The explanation of all the image's symbolism can be found
hereAfter that talk about the symbolism, seeing the large image of our Lady of Guadalupe and actually being permitted to touch her miraculous image, has made our devotion to our lady grow even deeper than before.
I firmly believe that it is Our Lady of Guadalupe who has blessed and protected our marriage and our family all these years and continues to do so.
BTW, Happy Anniversary to my dear husband!
