TRIDUUM TO OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
Feast Day: December 12
FIRST DAY (Dec 9)
Oh, Most Holy Lady of Guadalupe! The crown that
girds the temples of your Sacred head proclaims that
you are the queen of the universe. That is what you
are, O Lady, because as the Daughter, as the Mother
and Spouse of the Most High you exert an absolute
power and a most just right over all creatures.
This being so, I too am yours: I too belong to You
under a thousand titles; and on this occasion I
entrust myself to You by one more title, as the
Queen of America under the title of Our Mother of
Guadalupe. You therefore see me here, prostrate
before the Throne of Your Majesty: I choose you as
my Queen and my Lady, and for this reason I wish to
redouble the sovereignty and dominion that you have
over me; I wish to depend on You, and I desire that
the designs of Divine Providence for me would pass
through Your Hands.
Dispose of me as you please; I want the events and
situations of my life to be borne by you. I trust in
your kindness: may all things work for the good of
my soul and the Honor and Glory of the Lord, who is
so pleased that the whole world recognizes you as
its Queen.
What else can I believe on seeing you close to the
rays of the sun, other than that you are so
intimately united to the Sun of Divinity? That Light
is within you, the Light of Grace and Holiness.
What else can I believe, other than that you are
immersed in the sea of Divine perfections and
attributes, and that God always has you in His
Heart? May such exalted happiness be for the best.
Meanwhile, enraptured by the joy that You cause me,
I stand before the Throne of Your Sovereignty,
begging You to deign to send one of its fiery rays
towards my heart: illuminate my understanding with
Your light, set my will aflame with Your light: may
it persuade me that I am miserably deceived when I
love something other than my God, and when I do not
love You for Jesus. How well known it is that you
are our Advocate in God’s court, since you now clasp
to your chest those most beautiful Hands that never
cease to benefit us, in the gesture of one who
pleads and makes supplication, thereby making us see
that from the Throne of Glory where you dwell as the
Queen of Angels and of men, you also fulfil the
office of our advocate, praying and soliciting on
our behalf.
With what expressions of appreciation and gratitude
can I repay such delicacy? Yet since there is not
enough wealth in my heart to pay for it, I turn to
You to enrich me with the precious gifts of an
ardent and fervent charity, a deep humility, and
prompt obedience to the Lord. Strengthen your
supplications, multiply your prayers, and do not
cease to ask the Almighty to make me his, and grant
that I might go and thank you for the happy outcome
of your intercession in Glory. Amen.
OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE:
PRAY FOR US. (3 times.)
SECOND DAY (10 dec)
Oh, Most Holy Mary of Guadalupe! If an angel of
Heaven has the great honor of being at your feet,
joyfully opening his arms and spreading his wings to
form a support for Your Majesty, what should I do to
show my veneration for Your person, if not offer You
my heart and my soul so that, by sanctifying it with
Your Divine feet, it might become a Throne worthy of
Your Sovereignty? Deign, Lady, to grant this token:
do not despise it as unworthy, since I make up for
the merit that it lacks on account of my misery and
poverty with my good will and desires.
Enter and search my heart, and you will see that it
is not moved by other wings but those of the desire
to be yours, and the fear of offending Your Most
Divine Son. Make Your Throne in my heart and it will
thus not become debased by the entry of guilt and
enslavement to the devil. May they not live in it,
but rather Jesus and Mary.
What other garment would correspond to someone whose
beauty is Heavenly, if not one all made of stars?
With what could an all-celestial beauty be adorned,
if not with the radiance of virtues as high and
resplendent as yours?
A thousand times blessed be the hand of God who knew
how to unite in You such rare beauty with such
enhanced purity, and such brilliance and richness
arrayed with such gentle humility. I remain, O Lady,
absorbed in such kindly beauty, and I would like my
eyes to be always fixed upon You so that my heart
would not allow itself to be pulled away by an
affection other than your maternal love.
By those resplendent stars with which you are
adorned, infuse me with a fiery and fervent charity,
in order to love my God with all my heart and with
all my strength, and after God, You as the only
being worthy of universal love.
How well that carpet formed by the moon at Your
Sacred Feet speaks of Your sovereignty! With
unvanquished step you crushed the vanities of the
world, remaining superior to all creation, never
ebbing with the slightest imperfection: before your
first moment you were full of grace. How wretched I
am, O Lady, not knowing how to hold to my
intentions; I have no stability in my virtue and am
only constant in my bad habits. Grieve over me,
loving and tender Mother; since I am like the Moon
in my inconstancy, may I be like the Moon that is at
Your Feet, always remaining firm in your devotion
and love, so as not to be diminished by my faults.
Make me always be at Your feet in love and devotion,
and then I will no longer fear withering in sin, but
will seek to give myself fully to my obligations,
hating from my heart everything that is an offense
to God. Amen.
OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE:
PRAY FOR US. (3 times.)
THIRD DAY (Dec 11)
Oh, Most Holy Virgin of Guadalupe! I see in this
most beautiful portrait that which leads me to know
the high perfections with which the Lord endowed
Your Most Innocent Soul. This coarse and common
fabric - this poor but blessed ayate [fibre] on
which your singular beauty is stamped, make plain
the deepest humility that served both as the summit
and foundation of Your astounding holiness. You did
not disdain to take the tilma of the poor from Juan
Diego so that it might be imprinted with Your Face,
enchanting the angels, charming men and causing the
admiration of the entire universe.
How then could I fail to hope that, by Your
kindness, the poverty and misery of my soul would
not prevent You from imprinting Your most graceful
image upon it? This I ask you, O Lady, and for this
I offer you the fabric of my heart.
Take it in your Hands, O Lady, and never let it go,
because my wish is that it should not be employed
for anything other than loving you and loving God.
How mysteriously and with what success the Hand of
the Supreme Craftsman moved, embroidering Your
garment with that border of finest gold which serves
to adorn it, undoubtedly alluding to that finest
gold of God's love and charity with which all your
works were enriched. Receive within your pious heart
those who are so wretched; give your hand to those
who have fallen and invoke you in order to get up;
may yours be the glory of having found in me a
wretchedness corresponding more than all others to
your compassion and mercy.
What is impossible for your power, given that,
multiplying miracles, neither the coarseness nor the
simplicity of the ayate served as an obstacle to
PORTRAYING you so exquisitely? Neither has the march
of almost five centuries erased it, and not even the
1921 attack was capable of destroying you.
What good reason to strengthen my confidence, to
propagate your devotion and to beseech you so that,
opening your heart and recalling the ample power
that the Omnipotence of the Lord has given you on
behalf of mortals, you might deign to imprint within
my soul the image of the Most High, who has erased
my faults!
Take no account of my unworthiness; merely deign to
look upon me, for after Jesus, my only hope is You,
Holy Virgin Mary. Amen.
OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE:
PRAY FOR US. (3 times.)
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION TO OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
O Immaculate Virgin, Mother of the true God and
Mother of the Church!, who from this place reveal
your clemency and your pity to all those who ask for
your protection, hear the prayer that we address to
you with filial trust, and present it to your Son
Jesus, our sole Redeemer.
Mother of Mercy, Teacher of hidden and silent
sacrifice, to you, who come to meet us sinners, we
dedicate on this day all our being and all our love.
We also dedicate to you our life, our work, our
joys, our infirmities and our sorrows. Grant peace,
justice and prosperity to our peoples; for we
entrust to your care all that we have and all that
we are, our Lady and Mother. We wish to be entirely
yours and to walk with you along the way of complete
faithfulness to Jesus Christ in His Church; hold us
always with your loving hand.
Virgin of Guadalupe, Mother of the Americas, we pray
to you for all the Bishops, that they may lead the
faithful along paths of intense Christian life, of
love and humble service of God and souls.
Contemplate this immense harvest, and intercede with
the Lord that He may instill a hunger for holiness
in the whole people of God, and grant abundant
vocations of priests and religious, strong in the
faith and zealous dispensers of God’s mysteries.
Grant to our homes the grace of loving and
respecting life in its beginnings, with the same
love with which you conceived in your womb the life
of the Son of God. Blessed Virgin Mary, protect our
families, so that they may always be united, and
bless the upbringing of our children.
Our hope, look upon us with compassion, teach us to
go continually to Jesus and, if we fall, help us to
rise again, to return to Him, by means of the
confession of our faults and sins in the Sacrament
of Penance, which gives peace to the soul.
We beg you to grant us a great love for all the holy
Sacraments, which are, as it were, the signs that
your Son left us on earth. Thus, Most Holy Mother,
with the peace of God in our conscience, with our
hearts free from evil and hatred, we will be able to
bring to all true joy and true peace, which come to
us from your son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who with
God the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns
for ever and ever.
Amen.
His Holiness John Paul II Mexico, January 1979.
Visiting Her Basilica during his first foreign trip
as Pope.
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