Personal reflections from Archbishop Gomez ahead of the 500th anniversary of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Archbishop Gomez Shares Personal Reflections on Miracles of Our Lady of Guadalupe in New Pastoral Letter as Church Prepares for 500th Anniversary
Archbishop José H. Gomez today, released in Angelusnews.com his new pastoral letter entitled The Wonder of America: A Pastoral Letter to the Family of God in Los Angeles in Preparation for the 500th Anniversary of the Apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The new letter, dated on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, September 8, 2026, is being released today on the Feast of St. John Paul II, the first Pope to visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. These dates are especially fitting as the Catholic Church worldwide begins a special Jubilee Year proclaimed by Pope Leo XIV in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe to mark the 50th anniversary of the dedication of the new Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City and in commemoration of the 495th anniversary of her apparitions in 1531.
“I consider the Guadalupe event to be one of the great turning points in the history of the West,” Archbishop Gomez writes. “It is the true origin story for the United States and the nations of the Americas. Guadalupe holds the key to understanding God’s original intentions for these continents. Five hundred years later, it also holds the key for discerning the Church’s continued mission here.”
The deeply personal letter to the faithful draws from his own devotion which began in his youth in Mexico and has only grown as he became a priest and then a bishop in Denver and Archbishop in San Antonio and then Los Angeles. “I grew up loving Our Lady of Guadalupe. There was nothing forced about it, devotion to her came naturally,” the Archbishop writes.
Archbishop Gomez also acknowledges the impact of the evangelization of the Americas on the native peoples, noting “the struggle between ‘conquest’ and ‘faith.’ Between the earthly ambitions of the Spanish colonialists, who came seeking silver and gold and power and glory, and the missionaries who came to proclaim the love and salvation of Jesus.” He adds that it was the early missionaries, who advocated for the native peoples and their “defense of indigenous peoples helped lay the foundations for modern international law and our belief in universal human rights.”
The Archbishop puts historical context to the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, referencing the Nican Mopohua, which documents the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe based on the testimony of St. Juan Diego, his uncle St. Bernardino, who also saw and spoke to the Virgin, and that of the bishop who received the miraculous image. He carefully details the epic story of the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe to her specially chosen messenger Juan Diego, a humble indigenous man given a great task that transformed the Church and the New World.
Archbishop Gomez calls the miraculous image on Juan Diego’s cloak “an American icon,” and recalls its role in the conversion of millions of indigenous Mexicans in the decades following the apparitions. “As we gaze on her image, we can feel Jesus’ heart beating beneath her own, beating for the love of you and me and for the love of all the peoples of the earth,” he writes. “This is what the native peoples of that first generation felt when they gazed upon this divine image… The millions who still stream to Tepeyac each year are not coming to look at a picture in an exhibition. They are coming for that same encounter: to meet the Mother of God, to behold their mother.”
Archbishop Gomez also reflects on the importance of the image which has become a symbol of peace, love and unity for people around the world. He recalls the persecution of Catholics in Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s, which led many to flee possible death for their beliefs. Many of these refugees fled to California and were welcomed in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles helping to grow the communities in and around East LA. These refugees began the tradition of processing with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe to pray for peace, establishing the Archdiocese’s annual procession that this year will celebrate 95 years, making it the oldest religious procession in Los Angeles.
Pilgrim images of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego are currently visiting parishes throughout the Archdiocese continuing the long-held tradition. The Archdiocese is also blessed to have the only known fragment of the tilma outside of Mexico City where the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared almost 500 years ago. The relic was given as a gift from the Archdiocese of Mexico for the support of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles during those difficult times of persecution and is now enshrined at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles for veneration by all.
Archbishop Gomez closes his letter calling on the faithful of Los Angeles to follow the example of the missionaries and holy men and women who have followed in the footsteps of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s messenger St. Juan Diego as we near the 500thanniversary of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2031 and the 2000th anniversary of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the founding of the Catholic Church in 2033.
“Five hundred years on, Our Lady of Guadalupe is still looking for messengers,” wrote the Archbishop. “Let each of us answer with our whole lives.” The letter ends with a special Prayer for the 500th Anniversary of the Apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe written by the Archbishop, which will be shared with the faithful of Los Angeles on a prayer card throughout the Jubilee Year.
The Spanish version of The Wonder of America will be published online and printed by Angelus in a special issue in the coming weeks. For the full text of the Archbishop’s pastoral letter and more on the special celebrations in the Archdiocese for the Jubilee Year in her honor visit: http://www.lacatholics.org/wonder-of-america.
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