I recently made the decision to go on a Leadership Retreat and Pilgrimage to Mexico City with Tepeyac Leadership. While I am still unpacking all that happened, I know that I need to share some of this story while it is fresh in my mind. The experiences of this trip will be carried with me and integrated into my personal and business life. As I reflect on this trip, I can see God connecting dots with past, present and future through this retreat.
The first sign of providence is the fact that I was not originally going on this retreat. I had booked another Catholic business retreat that was scheduled for the week after this one. Then, very unexpectedly, that retreat got cancelled and there was no information on a future retreat. Being a member of the Tepeyac Leadership Council, I immediately pivoted and booked this retreat. Upon my arrival to Mexico City, I would receive another significant confirmation that I was meant to be on this retreat.
On the first day of arrival in Mexico City, I was staying at a hotel on a plaza that included the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City. Our retreat events were planned to be onsite at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, so I decided to visit the Cathedral on my off time. It was the first thing I did after checking in. Upon entering the Cathedral I was immediately drawn to my right. There was a chapel with a sign that said open for prayer. The Cathedral had 16 side chapels, and this was the only one open to enter at that time. I decided to go into the chapel and pray for a successful retreat and for the intentions of those who asked me to pray for them.
The chapel was named in honor of Our Lady of Sorrows. This is very meaningful to me as I pray the chaplet of Our Lady of Sorrows every Tuesday and Friday. I have also received many signal graces through praying to her under this title at very difficult times in my life. This was only the first sign.
As I entered the chapel, the first thing I noticed, bigger than life, was a painting of St. Raphael the Archangel, guiding Tobias on his journey, as we read in the book of Tobit. I was overcome with joy at seeing this because I entrust all my business dealings and my career to St. Raphael’s intercession. He has answered more prayers for me than I can count. As I have shared in my book, Become a Saint by Succeeding in Business, my devotion to him began after praying a 54 novena to him, at a crisis moment in my career. I was facing my third major unplanned career change in 8 years. I prayed to discern what I should do and put before St. Raphael three options. The last of the options, and the one that I was least interested in, was to start my own business. Well on the 54th day of the 54-day novena, I signed an agreement and received a substantial retainer for the first client and started my new business. Since then, he has been my guide in so many ways, and I pray to him almost daily. I have also referred many people to him with wonderful results. I share this to show how significant this sign was for me.
As I was still processing this wonderful sign, I began to take in the rest of the chapel. The next thing I saw was a powerful painting representing Our Lady of Sorrows called Our Lady of Agonies of Granada. It was stunning. As I continued to turn and view, there was a free-standing painting of the Blessed Mother, as Mary Undoer of Knots. My family has a deep devotion to Mary under this title and part of the intentions for this trip were from one of my daughters that really introduced us to this devotion. As I shared our intentions, I immediately felt a flow of grace and joy.
After praying to Our Lady, I turned next to a life-size painting of the Divine Mercy image. For the last year or so I have been reading daily from St. Faustina’s Diary about Divine Mercy. As I took in all these signs, I had an overwhelming sense not only that I was meant to be here, but that this retreat was going to be very impactful.
Throughout my stay, I visited this chapel three times, first to pray for the retreat and then for all the intentions I carried with me. Finally, on the morning of my departure, I paid one last visit to pray in thanksgiving for the blessings of the retreat and for the grace to follow through on what I had learned and received from the retreat.
One of the blessings I had from the retreat was the honor of carrying people’s intentions to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Prior to the retreat, I shared a post on Linkedin saying that I was going on retreat and asking if I could pray for anyone. I got a wonderful response. I also shared this offer with family and friends. By the time I left for the trip, I had several pages of prayer requests written down to take with me and the requests kept coming during the retreat. When I arrived, I literally felt as if I was carrying a weight because of the obligation to bring these intentions to Our Lady of Guadalupe. It was an honor to carry them.
During the retreat I offered my masses, sacrifices, rosaries, and Blessed Sacrament chaplet prayers daily for these intentions. As I went about the pilgrimage and particularly in my visits to the Cathedral, I would come across saints that were particular patrons for the people on my prayer list. I would then offer their petitions to that saint. This happened numerous times and was truly one of the great blessings and honors of this pilgrimage. I pray even now for the intentions I carried that Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Juan Diego, and all the angels and saints I encountered on the trip will continue to pray for them.
Retreat Day
We were blessed to begin our retreat with mass in the small but moving chapel of St. Juan Diego. In the middle of mass an apparently impoverished man, with rough simple clothing, with dark complexion and matted hair, walked slowly to the front of the church, ignoring the mass going on around him. He came to the altar, made the sign of the cross. He then turned to the tabernacle and prostrated himself to the Lord. He got up and walked out with saying a word, yet he spoke volumes to us. It was as if St. Juan Diego had paid us a visit. The mass and the priest’s homily beautifully kicked off the day. After mass we also got to venerate St. Juan Diego’s tomb which was in the chapel. St. Juan Diego was with us for the remainder of the trip!
Our location for the retreat was on Tepeyac hill and included a beautiful open air courtyard where we had all our meals and breaks. Truly the best location for a meeting I have ever been to. During the first day of the retreat, Tepeyac Leadership arranged for us to participate in a very special series of talks to help us contemplate how to grow to our full God given potential as lay leaders in business. The talks helped us examine what our natural temperaments were, and how these could be leveraged as a strengths in our careers, but also what weaknesses tend to come with each temperament. The team leading the talks, Ryan Hanning and Mike Phelan, then shared with us how the intentional pursuit of growing in virtues could both mitigate the weaknesses of our temperaments and allow us to achieve their full potential. But more than that, they helped us understand that there is no way to truly pursue integrating our faith and our business lives, if we are not truly working on the pursuit of holiness.
The pursuit of holiness requires us to honestly assess our sinful tendencies and human weaknesses and then intentionally pursue growth in the virtues needed to overcome those issues. This process not only applies to our spiritual lives but is absolutely essential to become the fullness of what we are called to be in our business lives. They also indicated that true leadership requires building real character, which comes only through intentional study and practice of the virtues.
The Call to Greatness
The leaders also shared the reality that every one of us is called to be great in our vocations. The pursuit of greatness in our vocations comes from the pursuit of greatness of soul, also known as the virtue of magnanimity. This is very little discussed virtue today, but it is essential to us becoming the fullness of who we God created us to be and to finding true joy and fulfillment in our business vocations.
Finally, they integrated all of our studies with the most important factor of all. The purpose of becoming the best we can be, of overcoming our weaknesses, and achieving greatness of soul, is not for our own glory. It is for the service of helping to lead others to do the same. True magnanimity always leads to the service of others!
For me this talk was very providential. I have spent considerable time in studying and writing about the integration of faith and business and the pursuit of being the best we can be in both. Growth in virtues and in particular in magnanimity has been a key part of my prayer and reflections. This training gave me critical insights into how to apply these further in my business life but also confirmed my path in continuing to write and teach about them. As if the days discussions were not a sufficient sign I was meant to be there, God had something else instore for me when I arrived home.
The morning after I arrived home, I woke still emersed in the graces of the event with my mind whirling with thoughts. I was also reflecting on the reading I did from Ryan Hanning’s book, The Will Power Advantage, Building Habits for Lasting Happiness, on my plane ride home. I opened my email that morning and read from a daily feed I receive of St. Josemaria Escriva’s writings. That morning’s writings said this (highlights added):
“The strong man will at times suffer, but he stands firm.”
The facade appears full of strength and resilience. But how much softness and lack of willpower there is within! You must hold to your determination not to let your virtues become fancy dress but clothes which define your character. (Furrow, 777)
No man, whether he be a Christian or not, has an easy life. To be sure, at certain times it seems as though everything goes as we had planned. But this generally lasts for only a short time. Life is a matter of facing up to difficulties and of experiencing in our hearts both joy and sorrow. It is in this forge that man can acquire fortitude, patience, magnanimity and composure.
The person with fortitude is one who perseveres in doing what his conscience tells him he ought to do. He does not measure the value of a task exclusively by the benefit he receives from it, but rather by the service he renders to others. The strong man will at times suffer, but he stands firm; he may be driven to tears, but he will brush them aside. When difficulties come thick and fast, he does not bend before them. (Friends of God, 77)
Are you following this? Virtues are need to create character. We must acquire a variety virtues, including what, Magnanimity! And we must not use them for our own glory, but for the service of others! The email completely echoed the essence of the retreat! God is so good!
As an aside, there is no Saint that has had more of an influence on my study and writing about faith and business than St. Josemaria Escriva. As I read this article, I knew he had a hand in leading me to the pilgrimage and in confirming my personal takeaways.
The Pilgrimage Goes On
While the retreat day was a blessing worth the whole trip, we were not done yet. The next morning, we were blessed to celebrate mass with several thousand people in the Basilica, in the presence of the miraculous Tilma of St. Juan Diego, featuring the incredible image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It is truly moving and filled with grace. There is truly a holy presence about it. I cannot put into words the graces that flowed during that mass and praying before the Tilma. But again, the blessings were not done! We left mass preparing to join a tour of Tepeyac Hill.
An Unexpected Tour
I fully expected to see an employee or a docent of the Basilica come to give us a standard tourist tour. What happened next, none of us expected. Up walked a priest that we did not know. Cristofer Pereyra, the founder of Tepeyac Leadership Institute, smiled as he introduced us to Monsignor Eduardo Chavez. He was none other than the Postulator for the cause for St. Juan Diego’s canonization. Literally no one in the world knows more about this saint and about Our Lady of Guadalupe. We knew we were in for a very special treat, but I personally had no idea how good it would be or what it would mean to me.
Msgr. Eduardo told the story of St. Juan Diego and the apparitions of our Lady with such passion and grace the atmosphere was electric. He shared not only the key facts of the events, but the true nature and meaning of each of the key parts of the apparitions. He literally brought it alive and then tied it very personally to all of us lay Catholics.
He emphatically shared that a key part of the meaning of the apparitions is found in Our Lady’s choice to give these revelations to a lay person and not a priest or religious. Monsignor emphasized repeatedly that the apparitions were a direct confirmation of the call the laity has to be part of the mission of the Church. I had never heard this about the apparition prior to that day. It of course completely reaffirmed the entire purpose of being part of the Tepeyac Leadership Initiative and coming on this leadership retreat. Everyone was truly moved by all that we had learned. If I might, I would like to close with one personal note about this experience and maybe it is a message for some of you as well.
While Msgr. Eduardo was talking about the messages of Our Lady to St. Juan Diego, he walked up to me, made a fist, and gently, but firmly, punched me in the heart twice, and said ‘the Virgin Mother wants you to have no fear, she will bring you joy.’ I was overcome spiritually and emotionally by these words. I know they were for all of us, and for all those whose intentions I carried with me, but they spoke right to my heart. I know Our Lady of Guadalupe spoke to me at that moment to address my fears for my business life, my imposter syndrome, and those in my family life. As of writing this, I have not been able to share the story yet without tears welling up. Thank you Our Lady of Guadalupe for this message!
Thank you to Cristofer Pereyra and Wendy Cano and the other team members of Tepeyac Leadership, that had the courage, vision and grace to put this leadership retreat together. For those that could not go, I cannot advise you strongly enough to take advantage of future leadership retreats.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Juan Diego, St. Raphael the Archangel, and St. Josemaria Escriva, thank you for your intercessions in getting me on this retreat and making it a life altering experience! This is why the Church acclaims during Benediction “Blessed be God in his Angels and in his Saints!”
Joseph Valentic is the author of Become a Saint by Succeeding in Business, which can be found on Amazon.
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