At a Mass honoring Our Lady of La Nube, Bishop Oswaldo Vintimilla Cabrera of Azogues, Ecuador, spoke of the significance of living with “humility and obedience” before the Lord by following the examples of Mary and Joseph, and he talked about the mysteries of the Incarnation and salvation.
Mary, under the La Nube title, is the patroness of Ecuador.
“We celebrate this Holy Mass in honor of Our Lady of La Nube, for all of our intentions, for the intentions of the sick and all who could not be here today,” Bishop Vintimilla said Dec. 18 in opening remarks during the annual Our Lady of La Nube Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Bishop Vintimilla served as principal celebrant and homilist.
In the homily, the bishop said, “On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, we honor Our Lady of La Nube, mother of the Ecuadorian people. The Word of God before the week of Christmas invites us to consider the coming of the Savior, primarily in His birth in Bethlehem.”
He noted that in the day’s readings we are reminded of the importance of humility and the mystery of salvation. And he spoke of Christ’s divinity and humanness, of His being “truly God and truly man, who manifested Himself with all of his power as the Son of God through His resurrection from the dead.”
“This is why we say, brothers and sisters, how wonderful it is the Incarnation of the Son of God. In Jesus Christ the nature of divinity is united with the nature of humanity,” Bishop Vintimilla said to the faithful.
The bishop went on to talk of the sufferings and doubts of St. Joseph, and of his eventually accepting the will of God through an angelic dream. “Joseph accepts with humility and obedience to be the earthly husband of the Divine Mother, and the adoptive father of the Son of God.”
Also, the bishop noted that we should see in Joseph “the virtues that we can imitate in the mystery of salvation from this Child who came to bring us redemption…We must act with humility in accepting what comes from God, and we must act with obedience always to God, His commandments and His Word. We should abandon ourselves in the hands of God and always act according to His will…All these virtues that we observe in St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary prepare us for the coming of the Lord.”
He prayed that the Virgin Mary’s intercession will bring “peace in the world, peace in our families, and peace in our hearts.”
The Mass concelebrants included Father Lorenzo Ato, director of archdiocesan Pastoral Ministries and Father Brian McWeeney, director of the archdiocesan Ethnic Apostolate.
The hymns were sung by the Hermanos Minchala Choir. The Ave Maria was sung by Henry Vargas.