This article first appeared in the 2025 Travel Guide of Our Sunday Visitor magazine. Subscribe to receive the monthly magazine here.
As we boarded our flight to Mexico City, with half our pilgrimage group scattered throughout the plane, I felt a pit sink in my stomach. I was about to leave the country for four days while on “pope watch” for both my radio show on SiriusXM and CNN, receiving twice-daily updates about the health of Pope Francis as he battled pneumonia at Gemelli Hospital in Rome. With my broadcast equipment stowed in my backpack and plans to “go live” as needed from my hotel room, I tried to convince myself that making this trip, a pilgrimage to see Our Lady of Guadalupe with my husband and 41 other pilgrims, was a good idea.
“It’s always a good idea to visit Our Lady of Guadalupe,” I thought to myself. “She is our mother, after all, and when Juan Diego tried to avoid her, she still sought him out, so …”
The plane took off right as the midday medical update came through on Feb. 28: The pope had suffered what we now know was a potentially life-ending bronchospasm. Lifting off from the Dallas-Fort Worth airport — three hours on a plane ahead of me, with just spotty wifi in the sky — that pit in my stomach grew. I was convinced I shouldn’t be going to Mexico. I began to make contingency plans to head back to the U.S. as soon as we landed in case I needed to go on the radio or TV to discuss the imminent death of Pope Francis.
I sat on that plane with nothing but woe and anxiety flooding my senses. My husband, in the middle seat next to me, napped contentedly, his snores increasing in volume by the second. Tommy’s ability to sleep on airplanes is a skill of which I’m deeply jealous. Beside him, in the aisle seat, was a very tall gentleman, busy on his phone. I only noticed what he was doing because he was holding his phone at what was essentially my eye level, but I could see that, as Tommy slept and I anxiously wondered if the pope would survive the night, this guy was scrolling through Tinder. For the next two and a half hours, he swiped right or left on seemingly every single woman in Mexico City.
I tried not to judge him. I didn’t know who he was, or why he was going to Mexico City, and I certainly didn’t know his situation in life. He could very well be a single guy, heading down for a weekend getaway to a town known for its beauty, nightlife and amazing restaurants. People don’t go to Mexico City just to see Our Lady of Guadalupe. I go to Mexico City for that singular reason, sure, but that’s not everyone’s reality. Still, as I saw him swiping on various profiles and sending messages to some of the women he was “meeting” online, I couldn’t help but feel for the guy. He was all alone on the flight, but it was evident he didn’t want to be all alone in Mexico.
I was sitting there fretting about the health of an 88-year-old celibate man. My husband was happily napping, largely oblivious to my anxiety. And here was this guy viewing Tinder profiles of women in a foreign country, hoping to share his weekend getaway with someone.
Captivated by her presence
As our plane landed, news of the pope’s health coming in bit by bit, I asked Our Lady of Guadalupe for help in the days to come: “Mom, let this trip be what you want and need it to be, for me, and for everyone else who just landed in your city.”
It was off to the races. Gathering pilgrims, loading luggage onto a charter bus, checking in at the hotel and heading off to our first Mass as a group. No rest for the weary on a pilgrimage, and no time to worry all that much about the health of the pope. I was there to see Our Lady of Guadalupe, and I needed to trust that she drew me back to Mexico — for a third time — for a reason.
I’ve gone to Mexico City on pilgrimage three times now to visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, where St. Juan Diego’s tilma is kept and visited by millions of people each year. It’s one of my favorite places on earth, specifically the third row of the people mover that brings you past the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Looking up at her, staring at what isn’t a photograph or a painting, but this seemingly living image of Mary, is so captivating and moving that I’ve tried to visit her every year since I started going in 2022.
Being in the presence of the tilma, praying at the tomb of St. Juan Diego, walking through the plaza outside the basilica, even visiting the tiny gift shops up and down the side streets — all of it, year after year, reminds me of how the Lord works in precisely the way he intends, at the moment and in the places where he wants.
St. Juan Diego, as faithful a man as he was, had no real influence or power, much less the connections to build a church. Yet that is who Our Lady of Guadalupe chose to speak to on top of Tepeyac Hill, inviting him to honor her and bring others into that same devotion. Years later, his faithfulness, and the miraculous appearance of Our Lady on his cactus-fiber cloak, continue to draw millions upon millions of people to the vast metropolis of Mexico City.
Whether people realize it or not, they come to Mexico for the food and the culture and the nightlife and the fun, but the city thrives because of Our Lady of Guadalupe. You can’t walk into a restaurant or a gas station or a souvenir shop without Our Lady being there, usually in the form of an image on the wall. The signage on the highways and streets points to the basilica, a central meeting point. The plaza is filled with pilgrims and locals alike, all drawn to see her, up on the wall, visible from nearly every single spot in the basilica and even outside in the plaza, when the doors are open in the evening. It seems even the street dogs who wander around will stop and stare at Our Lady in the distance, the vibrant teals and golds of her mantle sparkling from behind the bulletproof glass and frame where the tilma is kept safe.
Drawn to her Son
Every time I’ve been in the presence of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I’m reminded that this image of Mary is not an “it.” This isn’t a painting, a rendition of Our Lady by a talented artist who wanted to bring Mary to life. This is Our Lady as St. Juan Diego saw her, a pregnant mestiza woman, standing above the moon, surrounded by the stars, showing her motherhood and her queenship and her invitation to know the Lord all at once.
This is the image that converted the masses: Our Lady, who spoke in the same tongue as Juan Diego so that he, and everyone after, would understand. This is the image that has healed and heralded and survived bombings and inspired popes. This is the image that wasn’t painted, but imprinted, and hasn’t faded in nearly 500 years. This is the image that reminds me that this is our mother — Mother of the Church, Queen of Heaven — and that I can be a mother, on even the hardest days, because Our Lady of Guadalupe is my mother first.
Our Lady of Guadalupe is the reason I go to Mexico City, and year after year as I’ve gone to see her, I’ve never regretted making her the first and last stop of the trip. Despite my anxiety on this trip, as worries for Pope Francis loomed large in my head and heart, I knew she had drawn me to her once again. Because she is the draw to the city — a chance to be in front of the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe as St. Juan Diego saw her. You can hear her words as you stand before her: “Am I not here, I who am your mother?”
She is the mother who knows us, loves us, draws us close to her Son, asks us to trust her and him, and invites us to do what we think is impossible. She is the mother who invites us to Mexico City, to see and take part in the devotion to her that’s grown, and to relish the rich culture and beauty of a city that grew because of her. She is the mother who knows why we truly came to see her, or even just her city, in the first place — because we want to know that we are not alone, and we want to be with her, who shows us the perfect love of her Son.
Mexico City, whether visited for nightlife and food or for pilgrimage and prayer, is a place where we can encounter the love of Jesus because of the draw of Our Lady. She is the mother who brings us ever closer to the heart of her Son, and she is why we are there, whether we realize it or not.
Found by our mother
On the final night of our pilgrimage, on our last visit to the basilica to see the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe one final time, my husband and I sat down in my favorite spot in the entire plaza. Right in front of the old basilica (where the tilma was kept for centuries before the new basilica was completed in the 1970s), there are three very worn-down steps, and as you sit on the top step and look to your left, you have a perfect view of Our Lady of Guadalupe. As the sun goes down and the cobblestone plaza cools off, I like to sit there and stare at my mother.
“Was this the trip you wanted it to be, for me?” I prayed as I sat there. Our pilgrims had been so fun and patient. Our tour guide had been engaging and kind. Every place we visited had been charged with meaning and was a chance to deeply pray. Still, I’d been anxious the whole time, nervous I wouldn’t be able to fulfill work responsibilities if the pope got worse, and frustrated with myself for being so distracted by that anxiety. Was this the trip Mary wanted for me? Was it a chance to see and meet her again, a trip that would bear fruit and do something in my life?
“Not just for you …” I heard in the quiet of my heart. That gave me some peace … the trip was what it needed to be for all the pilgrims I was hosting, the lovely folks who wanted to travel with me to one of my favorite places on earth.
“I can live with that,” I thought. Not every trip is for me. But she who is our mother will always make it what it needs to be, in the Lord’s time and in his ways.
“Huh, that’s funny,” I heard my husband mutter as he sat next to me on the step.
“What is?” I asked.
“I think that’s the Tinder guy we saw on the plane,” Tommy said. And I looked up, and sure enough, walking past doors 7 and 8 of the basilica, right past our favorite sitting spot in the plaza, holding the hand of a lovely young woman, was the tall man from our flight down to Mexico City on the Friday before.
He’d clearly found what he’d been looking for on Tinder, after all that scrolling. Someone to connect with, spend time with, maybe party with. And she’d brought him to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
He found someone, and then someone, she who is our mother, found him.
