“It was Saturday, when it was still night…it was already beginning to dawn…He heard singing on the summit of the hill, as if different precious birds were singing and their songs would alternate as if the hills were answering them.  Their song was most pleasing and very enjoyable, better than that of coyolotor of the tzinizcan or of the other precious birds that sing…Juan Diego climbed the hill, and when he arrived at the top, he was deeply surprised.  All over the place there were all kinds of exquisite flowers from Castile, open and flowering.  This was not a place for flowers and likewise it was the time when the ice hardens upon the earth.  They were very fragrant, as if they were filled with fine pearls, filled with the morning dew…”

  (text of the NIcan Mopohua, as presented in Guadalupe: Mother of the New Creation by Virgil Elizondo)

Precious Juan Diego, on his hurried way, is stupefied by the birds and the flowers.  Birds singing and creating the divine space communicating to Juan.  And then the flowers blooming, out of season….what can this mean?

This was not a place for flowers…it was a time when the ice hardens upon the earth.  What warming happened on that graced summit of the desert hill of Tepeyac.  Flowers out of season, growing, and being coaxed by the birds, a divine conversation between the hills and the skies.  And here he is, Juan Diego, observing, transformed by this Sacred environment.  Who is to say that his participation and awareness was not the very key to the miracle of the moment. 

What is out of season? What is out of place? Storms terrifying, temperatures not comparable to historical data, indifference and explanatory theories of the state of the world. And what of the inner “out of season” and “out of place” pieces? Are love, concern, compassion, accountability, or any number of things “out of season and place?” Still they can bloom, and the birds can sing, granting their cosmic significance. Shall we listen to the song, see the blooms, smell the fragrance, and continue on our way. What is this Advent? This stumbling pregnancy that calls for dance, not blind staring or cold ice ‘hardening upon the earth.’

Break it open, or let it break me open I pray!  The fragrance is strong, more strong than I may be initially willing to smell.  Yet it is there in the unfolding of the bloom.  And the birds singing this song, one that I can let lull me to sleep if I dose, or one that can wake me up to the branches of that tree that grows in darkness.  

Shall I gather and let that immaculate conception really take hold of me.  That purity that comes from allowing the calling to conscript me into the moment that yearns to BE.  Can I be pregnant with the real purity, which is born from bearing the suffering and letting it lead me into the difficult space, the place where flowers out of season and place can bloom and wild birds can sing?  Lead me please, Tonanztin, our Lady of Guadalupe, Tepeyac, Heaven touching down, earth dancing upwards!  Can I be part of the answer from the hills, a droplet of the morning dew that defies the searing sun? Yes, We are!….