Sunday is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which commemorates the appearances of the Blessed Mother to Juan Diego, a peasant, in a series of apparitions in December 1531 in what is now a suburb of Mexico City.
During the appearances, the Blessed Virgin spoke to Juan Diego in his native language, identified herself as the Virgin Mary and asked for a church to be built on the site in her honor. The bishop was skeptical and asked Juan Diego for a miraculous sign to affirm the Blessed Virgin’s identity. She instructed Juan Diego to gather flowers from the top of Tepeyac Hill, where he had seen her apparitions. He followed her instructions, finding a type of rose not native to Mexico blooming in the cold. She arranged the flowers in his tilma (or cloak) and when he opened his cloak before the bishop, the flowers fell to the floor and the Blessed Mother’s image was on the tilma.
Over 20 million people visit the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe each year, now situated on the very same hill on which she appeared.
In 1910 Our Lady of Guadalupe was declared Patroness of Latin America, and in 1945 Pope Pius XII declared Her to be the Empress of all the Americas.
Click here to read the prayer written by Pope John Paul II in Mexico in January of 1979.
