‘How a saint is made’: Archbishop Gomez reflects on St. Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe’s story after audience with Pope Leo

In a Nov. 4 reflection, Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez drew on St. Juan Diego’s story to illustrate the universal call to holiness, in light of meeting with Pope Leo XIV last month and presenting a new pastoral letter about Our Lady of Guadalupe to him. 

“The story of Our Lady of Guadalupe is the story of how a saint is made, of how Juan Diego learned that he is a child of God, made in his image, and called to follow Jesus and become a saint,” Archbishop Gomez wrote in a Nov. 4 column for Angelus News. 

“In reflecting on the Virgin Mary’s apparitions in Mexico City in 1531, I came to a deeper understanding of the figure of St. Juan Diego, an ordinary layman, a man of faith, with family commitments and responsibilities in his parish,” he explained. “Our Lady entrusted this humble man to carry out the task of opening the door of faith to the peoples of the vast continents of the New World.

The reflection comes shortly after Archbishop Gomez had a private audience with Pope Leo Oct. 29, when he presented his pastoral letter on Our Lady of Guadalupe. The meeting occurred while he was in Rome to lead a pilgrimage for the Los Angeles chapter of the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders. 

In the pastoral letter, The Wonder of America, Archbishop Gomez described Our Lady of Guadalupe’s image as “an American icon” and urged Catholics to renew their missionary calling ahead of the 500th anniversary of the apparitions, as Zeale News previously reported.

In his Nov. 4 column, Archbishop Gomez linked that missionary calling to a broader Church teaching: that everyone is called to holiness.

“Being human is a vocation; it is a calling, a mission,” Archbishop Gomez wrote. “God creates us to share in his life, to be holy as he is holy, to live as his image in the world, as his sons and daughters.”

Archbishop Gomez then turned to reflect on artificial intelligence, pointing to Pope Leo’s discussion of the subject in his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. The archbishop wrote that ideas about using science and technology to perfect human nature “profoundly misunderstand the truth that Jesus revealed about the human person.”

“It is true: we are made to be perfected; we are made to transcend our mortal bodies and live for all ages,” he wrote. “We are made for greater things — to become holy, to become saints. But this is meant to come about, not by the works of our own hands, but by the workings of God’s grace in our souls.”

Drawing a distinction between the grace of the sacraments and the limits of technology, he wrote, “The Church’s sacraments are greater than any technology we could devise. Only the sacraments truly give us the power to transcend and perfect our humanity.”

The archbishop pointed to wisdom from St. John, who wrote that the faithful are already God’s children, and while what the faithful will be is unknown, “we do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” 

Archbishop Gomez reiterated, “We shall be like him! This is the promise of our faith.” 

He connected that promise to the Church’s November observances of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, highlighting again what God creates everyone for. 

“All souls are made to be all saints,” he wrote.

>> Holiness is a calling for everyone, not a privileged few, Pope Leo says during All Saints’ Day Angelus <<