Our Lady of Guadalupe

While I didn’t get to to mention it yesterday on social media, my birthday is really about the Feast Day for Our Lady of Guadalupe.

I had some birthdays along the way that were awful for a variety of reasons. I wasn’t aware of the significance of Guadalupe until I came to New Mexico and slowly found her becoming part of my life. When I’m at church– even in another town or state where there might be a Guadalupe statue (because I travel mostly between New Mexico and California where she is part of the culture), I will light a candle and say a prayer to her.

I always ask her to guide and lead me, to help me with my writing, and to make sure I do the things I’m supposed to do. I believe life has larger, more significant things for me to do and I don’t want to miss them.

The inspiration is coming fast and furious and I’m holding on during the holidays, hoping I can harness it when everything quiets down in January. I’m starting to realize that it’s like Guadalupe is constantly whispering in my ears ideas and bringing me inspiration.

Yesterday, however, the day that we share, was about honoring the last year, the prayers, the inspirations, the accomplishments. While I continue to be inspired, it is important to take that day, that step back, and acknowledge all that’s happened. With her in my life, my birthday has become a more meaningful and spiritual day.

I did that with mass in the morning and a small dinner party with some of the more spiritual people in my life, especially Veronica who is from Mexico and knows more about Guadalupe than I ever will.

Thank you, Guadalupe. I look forward to what we’ll do in the year ahead with you continuing to lead me.

Guadalupe and Me

To be honest, a few weeks ago, I really wanted to skip my birthday. We had just put Chaco down, I was coming up on the anniversary of my dog Daisy's death seven years ago (or was it eight? I can never remember), and while I have a great life, my holidays aren't the same without my parents and my younger sister. Denise and I had all sorts of things we did at Christmas as kids: finding the gifts early (my Barbies had to know they were getting a new bathtub, I reasoned) and putting on "Christmas Shows" with our Barbies and Raggedy Anns. And Christmas will be followed by the anniversary of my dad's death and then the first anniversary of my dog Gidget dying. The losses don't seem to end in my life and no matter how far forward I go, they are there somewhere, stamped in my memory.

This is combined with the fact that I'm working to understand how much time has gone by. Chaco was with me almost fourteen years and a part of me can't believe that fourteen years have passed. Yes, I spent them living and a lot happened and a lot of great things and people are in my life now. But I have to do some processing to get there.

And yet as the day drew closer, something tugged at me: the reminder that my birthday falls on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I find myself writing about this every year because until I moved to New Mexico, I had no idea who she was. My first birthday here I went to mass at noon and it was all about her although it would be another fifteen or so years before I would truly realize how lucky I am to share a day with her.

On Thursday before mass for the Immaculate Conception, I lit a candle for her, the same place where Greg and I left flowers at our wedding during the "Ave Maria." For the past year I have been working with a priest at the monastery here, a Norbertine Community, meeting monthly to help me draw closer to God. And really for me, it's about hearing the messages because I tend to talk too much in prayer (yes, it is possible!). 

As I stood there in prayer on Thursday and then as my friend Alicia and I left mass, a man was handing out Our Lady of Guadalupe novenas. When I told him my birthday fell on her feast day, he said, "You're special!"

On Saturday we had our mass at church to celebrate her day and the Immaculate Conception (the church's feast day) and Greg and I were asked to bring up the gifts. We had been asked recently so I didn't expect it– we get asked about once a month– but the usher looked desperate. And my friend Alicia gave me a rosary with Guadalupe on it and a book about Guadalupe in New Mexico. Everything was pushing me toward her and this day.

And so on this birthday as I write this (it's the afternoon of the 12th), I have enjoyed all the messages from people, but I find myself drawing inward with some work to do for the year ahead. At mass at noon, I again lit a candle and asked her in prayer that I spend the year getting to know her better, drawing closer. 

I think I know how this will pan out. Now to see next year what my birthday blog brings. In the meantime, here I go.