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Monday, December 9, 2024

Our Lady of Guadalupe December 12, 1531

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.

 

To learn more about this historical and miraculous event please view Guadalupe: The Miracle and the Message.  This YouTube documentary on the history and science behind this apparition is narrated by Jim Caviezel.  It is shown below. 
 

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