Our Lady of Guadalupe
Apparition December 9 – December 12, 1531
Over the centuries the Blessed Virgin Mary has appeared in
different places on earth. One of these apparitions took place almost 500 years
ago between December 9 and 12, 1531 to a Mexican peasant Juan Diego.
Juan was born in 1474 and lived during the height of the reign
of the blood thirsty Aztecs who depended upon human sacrifice to feed their sun
god. When Cortez conquered the Aztecs in the 1520’s, human sacrifice ultimately
came to an end, but pagan practices ran deep and continued to linger. Mary’s
appearance to Juan would help dismantle these pagan beliefs and bring millions
to Christianity.
Juan
Diego and his wife Maria Lucia were among the first to be baptized after the
arrival of Franciscan missionaries in Mexico in 1524. Juan was 50 years old. Little
is known about Juan Diego’s life before his conversion, but archaeological sources,
and the indigenous document El Nican Mopohua written in the native
language of Náhuatl in 1556 (25 years after the apparition), by the Antonio
Valeriano gives us information about Juan and the apparition of Our Lady of
Guadalupe.
After
his conversion, Juan walked 9 miles once a week from his home to the Franciscan
mission for Mass and religious instruction.
His route passed the hill at Tepeyac hill. It was on this hill the Mary appeared to him
four times over the course of 4 days. During
the 4th apparition on December 12, 1531 she left her image on Juan’s
native tilma. A garment made of cactus fiber.
This
tilma still exists today, almost 500 years later. Displayed in the church of Our Lady of
Guadalupe in Mexico City, it has not decomposed. Even after having been exposed to the
elements, including smoke, acid and a bomb explosion. Mary’s appearance at Tepeyac is
said to have contributed to one of the most unprecedented conversions in Catholic
Church history. In just 7 years over 9
million conversions took place among the indigenous Aztec people of Mexico.
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