Poor One of Yahweh

Richard Rohr OFM writes, ‘the glory of the anawim (Hebrew for “the poor of Yahweh”) is their salvation by God alone.  The anawim, the little ones, know they cannot do it or do it alone.  They rely on others. Their greatest blessing is not what they have accomplished but what God has done for them (read Zephaniah 3:11-20).

When Mary appeared to the poor native, Juan Diego, on this day in 1531, she chose not to speak to the clergy, to the educated, to the Spanish oppressors, but to one of the uneducated and oppressed ones, just like herself.  She knew the pattern well.

For Luke, Mary is the exemplary “poor one of Yahweh,” for what has been accomplished in her is far beyond her own worthiness or power. And so, after the angel has said it, after Elizabeth has said it, Mary too proclaims how blessed she herself is.  She believes them!  And then Juan Diego believes her!  Thus, the divine mirroring passes through history.’