Cardinal Norberto Rivera of Mexico City commended to Our Lady of
Guadalupe the millions of migrants who have left behind their country
for a better future in the U.S., asking her to help Americans welcome
them – especially President-Elect Donald Trump.In his prayer published by the weekly Desde la Fe in honor of her feast day Dec. 12, Cardinal Rivera asked the intercession of the Virgin of Tepeyac for Mexico, “which is sinking in the swamp of corruption and poverty, is sick with violence and wounded by injustices.”
“Move the hearts of the violent and the sinners, protect families, preserve our Catholic faith, give those who govern us the vocation of service, satisfy our hunger and thirst for justice, because we are under your protection, Holy Mother of God,” he prayed.
President-Elect Trump has sparked controversy – notably among Catholic leaders – for his disparaging remarks about Mexican immigrants, as well as his plan to build a wall along the Mexico-U.S. border, while making the former pay for it.
Below is the complete text of Cardinal Rivera's prayer:
We call upon you as the comforter of the afflicted, O Holy Mother of God, on this day of your blessed feast day, we have brought to you, as if it were an offering, the affliction of millions of your children who emigrated to the United States of America in search of bread for their families, of education to face the future, of the hospitality of those who also were one day strangers, and who knew how to form a great nation, diverse in its cultures.
Your children who emigrated, Merciful Mother, took with them the memory of their families and towns, but they also took you. And so, now there is no Catholic church in the United States that does not provide an inn as it were for your blessed image, because you are the patroness and empress of Mexico and of the entire continent.
Your loving Mantle crossed the oceans and also sheltered the Philippine Islands, but in reality you are the Mother of all Christians, because for your love there are no races, there are no borders, there are neither rich nor poor, neither saints nor sinners; you embrace everyone, you comfort all of us, you love like a true Mother, without distinctions, since you only seek the happiness of your children, and that happiness is not in this valley of tears, but in heaven, in the salvation your Son gives us, in the truth, beauty, and freedom that only God can give us.
O Most Clement Virgin! Repeat to your afflicted and threatened children those words full of tenderness and comfort that you revealed to humble Saint Juan Diego: “Am I not here who am your mother? What more have you to need?”
Strengthen the parents who are anxious over the possibility of losing their jobs; comfort the mothers who fear being separated from their families; give hope to the young people who don’t want to abandon their studies, encourage the families that are financially dependent on the money that their loved ones send them; give courage to the American bishops so they defend the sheep that God has sent them; and grant us Mexican bishops the courage and the grace to support them in adversity.
O Merciful Mother! Move the hearts of Americans so they make room for those who, with their hard work have given prosperity to their country, and touch the hardened heart of the new President-Elect who being a Christian – as he has declared – so he cannot see the poor and the immigrants as enemies but rather as brothers with whom he must be tolerant, generous and just.
But our supplication, O Mother, comes full of affliction for our Mexico, your beloved Mexico, which is sinking in the swamp of corruption and poverty, is sick with violence and wounded by injustices. Move the hearts of the violent and sinners, protect families, preserve our Catholic faith, give those who govern us the vocation of service, satisfy our hunger and thirst for justice, because we are under your protection, Holy Mother of God, despise not the supplications that we make in our necessities, but rather deliver us from all danger, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin!
Sweet Child of Tepeyec, dear mother of Mexicans, we come to you with roses; offer us, Holy Mary of Guadalupe, your blessed protection, your sweet consolation and that much desired peace.
Amen.