December 12 — Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

The Actu­al Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe at the Basil­i­ca in Mex­i­co City

On Decem­ber 9th, 10th, and 12th of 1531, the Blessed Vir­gin Mary appeared in Mex­i­co as the preg­nant Moth­er of God to Saint Juan Diego. Saint Juan Diego was an indige­nous man who recent­ly con­vert­ed to Catholi­cism. (The Span­ish had con­quered Mex­i­co only a few decades ear­li­er. Lat­er mis­sion­ar­ies came to bring Chris­tian­i­ty to the indige­nous peo­ple of Mex­i­co.)

Our Lady left a Mirac­u­lous Image of her appear­ance on Saint Juan Diego’s cac­tus fiber cloth (tilma), which still exists today and is on dis­play at the Basil­i­ca of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mex­i­co City. Our Lady came to offer faith, hope and con­so­la­tion to the indige­nous peo­ple of Mex­i­co and to bring peace to the land. Her appear­ance also brought an end to the human sac­ri­fices that were part of the Aztecs’ offer­ings to their false gods. She led them instead to Jesus, her Son, the One True God.

Ear­ly in the morn­ing of Decem­ber 9th, 1531, Our Lady appeared to Saint Juan Diego for the first time. Saint Juan Diego was walk­ing to attend the Holy Mass in the morn­ing as usu­al. (It is said that Saint Juan Diego walked 15 miles every day to attend the Holy Mass!) Our Lady said:

“My dear son, whom I love ten­der­ly, know that I am the Vir­gin Mary, Moth­er of the True God; the Giv­er and main­tain­er of life; Cre­ator of all things; Lord of Heav­en and Earth, Who is in all places. I wish a tem­ple be erect­ed here, where I can man­i­fest the com­pas­sion I have for the natives and for all who solic­it my help.”

 She asked him to go to Bish­op Juan Zumar­ra­ga and request to have a church built on the bar­ren hill of Tepey­ac which is now part of Mex­i­co City. Juan Diego went to the Bish­op as Our Lady had asked. The Bish­op asked Juan Diego to ask Our Lady to give him a sign.

On Decem­ber 12th, Our Lady appeared to Saint Juan Diego and told him to pick the Castil­lian ros­es (found nat­u­ral­ly in Spain) that mirac­u­lous­ly appeared on Tepey­ac hill, though Tepey­ac hill is a bar­ren area with cac­tus plants and despite the fact that it was win­ter. Saint Juan Diego put the ros­es in his tilma which Our Lady care­ful­ly arranged in his tilma. She told him to bring them to the Bish­op as the sign for him to believe her request. Our Lady told him only to open the tilma full of ros­es in the pres­ence of the Bish­op.

Saint Juan Diego and Bish­op Zumar­ra­ga

Saint Juan Diego went to see the Bish­op and then he opened the tilma and the ros­es fell to the floor. To everyone’s amaze­ment, the Image of Our Lady had appeared on the tilma  by the direct pow­er of God! The Bish­op built the church as Our Lady request­ed and with­in the next nine years, nine mil­lion native Mex­i­can peo­ple were con­vert­ed and bap­tized to the one true faith and estab­lished an era of peace!

Many sci­en­tists (includ­ing sci­en­tists from NASA) have stud­ied the image and have shown that the mirac­u­lous image is not a paint­ing! There is no pig­ment and there no brush­strokes on the tilma. Also, since the tilma is made of a sim­ple cac­tus fiber cloth, it should have rot­ted after 20 years, but it has been mirac­u­lous­ly pre­served over the past 471 years! The image was also left unscathed by a bomb blast in 1921 when a bomb was placed direct­ly in front of it by anti-Catholic Mex­i­can peo­ple. Fur­ther­more, dig­i­tal enhance­ment of the eyes of Our Lady in the Image shows the reflec­tion of the faces of Bish­op Zumar­ra­ga and Saint Juan Diego. Five eye doc­tors who exam­ined Our Lady’s eye said that they looked into a human eye. Dr. Jose Aste Ton­s­mann car­ried out the most famous research stud­ies of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s eyes in the image. Even the con­stel­la­tions on her man­tle have been iden­ti­fied to match the con­stel­la­tions in the sky of Decem­ber 12th 1531!

 All of this con­firms what the faith­ful have always believed—that this tru­ly Mirac­u­lous Image was pro­duced direct­ly by the hand of God!

Our Lady of Guadalupe is also the same woman described in the Book of Rev­e­la­tion. “There was a great sign in the heav­ens, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.”(Revelation 12:1–2)

The image is full of sym­bol­ism which com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the native peo­ple of Mex­i­co to embrace the Catholic faith, the gospel of Jesus Christ—to turn to the One True God. The mir­a­cles attrib­uted to Our Lady of Guadalupe con­tin­ue to this day. Her image still con­tin­ues to com­mu­ni­cate to us the need to seek her inter­ces­sion that she might bring us to Her Son Jesus.

Dur­ing one of the appari­tions, when Saint Juan Diego was con­cerned about his dying uncle (who Mary lat­er healed), she said,

“… Do not be afraid of any ill­ness or acci­dent or pain. Am I not here who am your Moth­er? Are you not under my shad­ow and pro­tec­tion? Do you need any­thing else? ”

 These words still bring com­fort today and help us remem­ber that Mary is always at our side.

Fur­ther­more, how fit­ting that Mary should appear preg­nant with her Son dur­ing the sea­son of Advent of 1531, hop­ing to bring peo­ple to her Son in time for Christ­mas! May Our Lady of Guadalupe bless us dur­ing Advent, Christ­mas, and always!

For more infor­ma­tion about Our Lady of Guadalupe:

Our Lady of Guadalupe (Catholic Online)

Our Lady of Guadalupe (Feast: Decem­ber 12)

Our Lady of Guadalupe (Wikipedia)

Videos

 Appari­tion of Our Lady of Guadalupe(part1)

Appari­tion of Our Lady of Guadalupe(part 2)