Our Lady of Guadalupe


 A few years before Mary came to St. Juan Diego, the Catholic bishop of Mexico, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, was experiencing great difficulty protecting the indigenous people from some of the Conquistadores, and winning converts to our Lord.  In great anguish, he prayed earnestly to our Lady that she would intervene, and that she would give him a sign of her having heard his prayer.  He asked for an impossibility, the sign of Spanish Castilian roses here in Mexico.

A few years later, a 57-year-old man was walking to Mass in the early morning twilight of Dec. 9, 1531.  He was a member of the indigenous Chichimeca nation.  His wife had died two years earlier, and he now lived with his older uncle.

 

He was a convert to Catholicism.


En route to Mass, he had to pass a hill that had once been the site of an ancient Aztec temple, dedicated to the Mother of the Gods.  The indigenous people believed, as far back as anyone knew, that the gods liked to speak to them through flowers and music.  Juan Diego's morning quiet was broken by the beautiful singing of hundreds of birds.  Leaving the path to investigate, he climbed the hill and came face to face with a young woman.  She was radiating love, and she identified herself as the Ever-Virgin Mary, the Mother of the True God.


Juan Diego was dazzled by her beauty and radiance.  She was dressed as a native princess, a young queen, and her words sounded more beautiful to him than he could later describe.


He was startled, but she calmed him, and assured him of who she was.  She instructed Juan Diego to go to his bishop, and to ask that a temple be built on that hill, the site of her appearance.  She asked that it be dedicated to her, because there she would hear petitions and heal the suffering of all the people.


When he arrived at the cathedral, Juan Diego was still visibly shaken.  But he spoke to the bishop, who was very skeptical of his account.  What did this man really want?  Attention?  Notoriety?  Money?  Is he possessed by demons?


Bishop Zumárraga listened to Juan Diego's account, but disbelieved and dismissed him.  Juan Diego felt that he had failed Mary.


He returned to Tepeyac Hill to her.  Our Lady was there still, or again, as radiant and loving as before.  He told her what she already knew, that the Bishop did not believe him.  She reassured him and asked him to return to the bishop the next morning to ask again.


When he did so, the Bishop now was annoyed.  Was the man lying, or perhaps insane?  At their second meeting, the Bishop told Juan Diego that, if he is to believe him, then he needs some sort of convincing sign from the Lady.  Juan Diego made a promise he did not keep; he said he would return the next morning with the sign from Our Lady.


Later that day, Juan Diego returned home to find his uncle, Juan Bernadino, very ill.  That disease brings a burning fever so hot that it is almost always fatal.  Traditionally it was associated with a displeased Aztec god, the Feathered Serpent.  


Juan Diego did not feel that he could leave his uncle's bedside to keep his word to the bishop.  So he spent two days with his uncle, trying to save him.  


When it became apparent that his uncle was about to die, Juan left in a great hurry to find a priest who could come to hear his uncle's confession and give him the Sacrament of Healing.


Juan actively tried to avoid Mary by going around the hill on the opposite side from the road.  But Our Lady came to him anyway, asking him whether he’d been trying to avoid her.  Humbly Juan told her about his uncle.  Our Lady replied, "Am I not your mother? ... Are you not in the crossing of my arms?  Your uncle is already well.”


Juan was overjoyed.  He asked her for the sign he promised to the Bishop.  She told him to climb to the top of the hill, where he would find flowers.  He was to gather them, and bring them to her.  At the top he found flowers unlike any he had seen before—Castilian roses that grow in Spain, and were exactly the sign the the bishop had prayed for.  Juan gathered them in his cloak and brought them to Mary.  She arranged each one, and told him that he is to keep them hidden in his cloak and to show them to no one before the bishop sees them.


For the third time, and this time after having to wait hours, Juan Diego was ushered in to see the bishop.  The skeptical prelate asked what Juan was hiding in his cloak.  Juan opened it and the Castilian roses cascaded to the floor.  As the men watched, they were astonished to see appearing on the cloak an image of Our Lady.


It represented her as she appeared to Juan, with the face of a native princess, yet whose features are a blend of indigenous and European.  Her head is bowed, and her hands are folded in prayer to God.  At her neck is a small cross.  On her cloak the stars are in the formation that they appeared at that location on the date and hour of her apparition.  She is clearly pregnant, but the color of her top is that worn by a virgin.

 

Under her feet is a crescent moon, a central symbol of the old Aztec religion.  She is more powerful than the Aztec gods, for her standing on their symbol is a sign of her strength over them.  Yet she is not a god herself, for she is praying.  Her robe is covered with picture-writing that reveals that she is the Queen of Heaven and Earth.  


Multiple modern microscopic examinations of the image of Mary on the cloak show that, while the image is there, there is no pigment of any kind.  There is nothing there but the material of the cloak itself.  There is no scientific explanation.


In each of Mary's eyes is a microscopic image, far too small to be seen naturally, that show what seem to be people, the people that Mary was looking at when the image appeared in the presence of Juan and the bishop.     


About the time that Our Lady was appearing the final time to Juan Diego, she also appeared to his uncle, who was about to die.  As soon as she appeared, the fever left him and Juan Bernadino was well again.  She told him that she wants to be known as Santa Maria de Guadalupe.  The word “Guadalupe” is virtually unpronounceable to those who spoke Juan’s dialect, but it sounds almost the same in their language as “She who Crushes the Head of the Serpent.” 


Bishop Juan de Zumárraga gladly built the first Christian temple on Tepayac Hill.  A newer one  remains there today. 


Millions of native people converted at the news of Mary's appearance.  Today millions from all over the world make pilgrimages to see the miraculous cloak and to honor Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe.  


The year 2031 will be the 500th anniversary of these apparitions.  Miracles continue to occur there even today.


Our Lady of Guadalupe said this to Juan Diego:


"Know for certain, least of my sons, that I am the perfect and perpetual Virgin Mary, Mother of the True God through whom everything lives, the Lord of all things near and far, the Master of heaven and earth.  It is my earnest wish that a temple be built here to my honor.  Here I will demonstrate, I will exhibit, I will give all my love, my compassion, my help and my protection to the people.  I am your merciful mother, the merciful mother of all of you who live united in this land, and of all mankind, of all those who love me, of those who cry to me, of those who seek me, of those who have confidence in me.  Here I will hear their weeping, their sorrow, and will remedy and alleviate all their multiple sufferings, necessities, and misfortunes.”


Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

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