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| Saint Juan Diego
(1474-1548)
Born before Columbus’s first voyage, he witnessed the Spanish
conquest of Mexico by Hernan Cortes in 1521. The first 12
Franciscan missionaries arrived in the area of what is now
Mexico City. Juan Diego was a farmer, landowner and weaver of
mats. He was married to Maria Lucia. At age 50, in 1524, Juan
Diego and his wife were baptized by a Franciscan priest,
Father Peter da Gand, one of the first Franciscan missionaries
to America. His wife died in
1529.
On Saturday,
December 9, 1531, when Juan Diego was walking to Mass and
catechetical instructio, he heard the sound of birds singing
on Tepeyac Hill and someone calling his name. He saw a Lady,
about 14 years old, who resembled an Aztec princess in
appearance, and surrounded by light. The Lady spoke to him in
Nahuatl, his native language. She called him “little son”
(“Xocoyte”) and he responded by calling her “my youngest
child” (“Xocoyote”). The Lady asked Juan Diego to tell the
bishop of Mexico, a Spanish Franciscan named Juan de
Zumarraga, that she wanted a shrine (“teocalli”) to be built
on the spot where she stood, in her
honor.
According
to the Nican Mopohua, the first Spanish written source for the
story of the apparition, the Lady said: “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.”
Juan
Diego recognized the Lady as the Blessed Virgin Mary, the
mother of God. He went to the bishop as instructed. The bishop
was doubtful and told Juan Diego he needed a sign. Juan Diego
returned to Tepeyac Hill and explained to the Lady that the
bishop did not believe him. He implored the Lady to use
another messenger, insisting he was not worthy. The Lady
insisted that it was very important that it be him to speak to
the bishop on her
behalf.
On Sunday,
Juan Diego went again to the bishop, but again the bishop
asked for a sign. Later that day the Lady promised Juan Diego
that she would give him a sign the following day. According to
the Nocan Mopohua, Juan Diego returned to the home of his
uncle, Juan Bernardino. His uncle was seriously ill, and the
next morning Juan Diego decided not to meet with the Lady, but
care for his uncle and to find a priest who could administer
the last rites to his dying uncle. The next day, December 12,
when he tried to skirt around Tepeyac Hill, the Lady
intercepted him, assured him his uncle would not die, and
asked him to climb the hill and gather the flowers he found
there. She said to him,
“Listen to me. Do not let anything
bother you, and do not be afraid of any illness, pain or
accident. Am I not here, your Mother? Are you not under my
shadow and protection? What more could you want? Don’t worry
about your uncle. He is well
already.”
It was
December, when nothing normally blooms in the cold. But he
found roses (from the region of Castille in Spain—the former
home of Bishop Zumarraga). He brought the roses back to the
Lady in his tilma, a cloak made with coarse fibers from the
maguey cactus. The Lady rearranged the roses carefully in his
tilma and instructed him not to open it before anyone but the
bishop. When Juan Diego met the bishop, and opened the tilma
to show him the sign he had requested, the roses fell to the
floor. The bishop immediately knelt down, because there on the
tilma was the image of the Lady who had
appeared to Juan
Diego, miraculously impressed on the
cloth.
On that
same day, December 12, the Lady appeared to Juan’s uncle and
cured him. Juan Bernardino later went to the bishop and told
him how he had been cured. He told the bishop that the Lady
wished to be known as “The Perfect Virgin, Holy Mary of
Guadalupe.”
Within
two weeks Bishop Zumarraga acknowledged the miracle and
ordered a shrine to be built where the Virgin Mary had
appeared. He entrusted the tilma with the image to Juan Diego,
and permitted him to live in a small hermitage near the
shrine, and the spot where the Virgin Mary had appeared. Juan
Diego told the story to all the pilgrims who came there and
cared for the chapel. He died on May 30, 1548, at the age of
74.
Juan Diego was
declared venerable in 1987. Pope John Paul II beatified him on
May 6, 1990 in the Shrine to Our Lady in Mexico City. The same
pope canonized Juan Diego on July 31, 2002. He praised Juan
Diego for his simple faith, holiness and as a model of
humility.
News of the apparition on Tepeyac Hill spread
quickly through Mexico. Over the next ten years, it is
estimated that 10 million native peoples were converted to the
Catholic Faith.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, as the Virgin Mary of this apparition
came to be called, is integral to the faith of Catholics
throughout Mexico and the rest of Latin America. In 1754 Pope
Benedict XIV declared Our Lady of Guadalupe patron of “New
Spain” (what we today call Latin America) and approved
liturgical texts for Mass and the Divine
Office.
In 1895
Pope Leo XIII granted new texts and authorized coronation of
the image. Pope Pius X proclaimed her patron of Latin America
in 1910. Pope John XXIII invoked her as “Mother of the
Americas” in 1961. Pope John Paul II first visited the shrine
in the course of his first papal pilgrimage outside of Italy
in January 1979. In 1992 he dedicated a chapel to Our Lady of
Guadalupe within St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. At the
request of the Special Assembly for the Americas of the Synod
of Bishops, Pope John Paul II named Our Lady of Guadalupe
patron of the Americas in 1999. Her liturgical celebration on
December 12 now has the rank of solemnity throughout all of
North, Central and South
America. | |
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